Rosemary Root Vegetables

New Year's week. The year ends Wednesday and starts again Thursday and I have never made a thing of New Year's — Gallaghers do not do resolutions, do not do parties, do not do big nights — but I do, every year, on the first morning of the new year, take stock. I sit at the kitchen table with coffee at five-thirty and I make a small list in a notebook of what worked and what did not in the year that ended. The list is for nobody but me. The notebook lives in a drawer. I have eight years of these lists. The lists are mostly boring and that is fine. Boring lists describe boring years and boring years are a luxury for a man who has lived through years that were not boring.

The 2024 list will say: book published, second printing sold through, third printing in stores, modest income from royalties paying for medications. Hay in the barn at three cuttings. Twenty-two November weaners healthy. One September calf alive and gaining. Bull elk killed in the Crazies. Patrick alive. Mom alive. Cole and Tara expecting Maggie in February. Tara had a scare and is fine. Marcus made a hundred days. Tom Whelan still riding. AA Saturday cookouts grew from four men to ten. The book got nominated for the Mountain West Award. I did not relapse. I did not consider relapsing. I am thirty.

That is the list. It is a long list for one year. The years used to be much shorter. I do not want to make too much of this. I am noting it.

The cold broke Tuesday. Up to thirty-eight, the snow on the ground softened, the icicles started to drip off the eaves. A January thaw two weeks early. I used the soft day to clean the calf shed — a task that needs the manure to be at least partially soft to handle, and that I had been putting off for a week — and to fix a section of fence that had been chewed by elk in November. Five hours of outside work and I came in tired in the good way. Patrick sat on the porch in his coat for an hour during the warm part of the day. He said, Feels like spring, before he came in. I said, It will not last, Dad. He said, I know. He said, Take what you can get. I said, Yeah. We were sitting on the porch eating lunch — Mom's soup, sandwiches — and the sun was coming through and the cattle were standing in the unfrozen mud and the magpies were down by the calf shed, and Patrick was right. Take what you can get. The advice fits more than the weather.

Cooked roast pork loin Sunday. The kind of cooking I default to in winter when I want a meal that takes care of itself for an hour and that gives leftovers and that does not require thinking. Three-pound loin, salt and pepper and crushed fennel seed, sear hard in the cast iron, into the oven at three-fifty for fifty minutes, rest fifteen minutes, slice thick. Apples and onions cooked in the pan with the drippings. A pile of mashed potatoes Mom had made. Patrick had two slices. Mom had one. I had two. Leftovers Monday lunch — pork sandwiches with mustard and pickled red onion on Mom's sourdough. Leftovers Tuesday lunch. The pork lasted three meals. Three meals from one cook is the right ratio for winter.

Saturday New Year's Eve cookout was small — four men, not the Saturday before, because the holiday spread the men thin. Marcus and Tom and Vince and one of the new guys. We sat around the fire from seven to eleven. At midnight we did not do anything. We did not toast. We did not sing. We sat. Tom said, on the way to his truck, You boys had a good year. We said, Yeah. He said, Carry it forward. He drove home. The first morning of the new year I will sit at the table and write the list. I will write Marcus, hundred days. I will write Patrick, alive. I will write Maggie, due. I will write the book. I will not write the war or the recovery or the seven-year sobriety. Those are not for the list. Those are not for any list. Those are the floor I stand on. The list is what I have built on top of the floor. The fire helps. The list helps. The taking what you can get helps most.

The pork loin is the center of that Sunday cook, but what made it work — what made it last three meals without feeling thin — were the root vegetables I had roasted in the same window of oven time. Rosemary, a little oil, whatever roots were in the cellar. They go in beside the pan, they come out ready, they reheat without complaint on Monday and Tuesday alongside the sandwiches and the leftover slices. Three meals from one cook is the right ratio for winter, and root vegetables are part of how you get there.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr | Servings: 4–6

Ingredients

2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
2 medium parsnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
2 medium turnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch wedges
1 large russet or Yukon Gold potato, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 medium red onion, cut into wedges
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, smashed
2 teaspoons fresh rosemary, chopped (or 1 teaspoon dried)
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped (optional, for finishing)

Instructions

Preheat the oven. Set the oven to 400°F. Line a heavy rimmed baking sheet with foil or use it bare for better browning.
Prep the vegetables. Peel and cut all root vegetables into roughly equal 1-inch pieces so they roast evenly. Cut the onion into thick wedges, leaving the root end intact so the layers stay together.
Season. In a large bowl, toss the vegetables and garlic with the olive oil, rosemary, salt, and pepper until everything is well coated.
Arrange and roast. Spread the vegetables in a single layer on the baking sheet — do not crowd them. Roast at 400°F for 40–45 minutes, turning once halfway through, until the edges are caramelized and the centers are tender when pierced with a fork.
Finish and serve. Taste for salt. Scatter parsley over the top if using. Serve hot alongside roast pork or any winter main. Reheat leftovers in a dry skillet over medium heat for best texture.

Nutrition (per serving)

Rosemary Root Vegetables — The Side Dish That Belongs Next to a Winter Roast