Root Vegetable Casserole

In my efforts to create some Paleo vegetarian options, this Root Vegetable Casserole was one of the first recipes I made. It lasted us a while which helped me during the time I was brainstorming and playing around in the kitchen to create more vegetarian recipes. We warmed this casserole up for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can serve this as a main dish or as a side along with some shredded pork or a nice ribeye steak. Mmmmmm steak :)

You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned much more about my paleo vegetarian adventure. Well that’s because it didn’t last long. I was quite disappointed with my ability to carry this one out to the end. Especially after only lasting maybe two full weeks before I decided to pull the plug. (More on the reasons why I stopped soon.)

I still focused on creating main dish paleo vegetarian meals, but I served it with a side of meat. :) By taking the time to really focus on vegetables, and inadvertently stressing myself out to the point that I had to quit, we still added more veggies to our daily meals. And I have to admit, having this large casserole readily available in the fridge was a big relief.

Paleo Vegetarian Dinner

Overall I’m glad I did this little experiment because the end goal stuck. Earlier this week I served this veggie heavy meal of butternut-pear soup, spinach-avocado salad with a delicious balsamic-fig dressing (that I got as a gift for Christmas), a side of sliced carrots and parsnips that were fried in a skillet and a serving of squid rings served with butter-sage sauce. Look at that dose of Paleo porn! :)

Can you believe that meal only took 20-25 minutes to make? I made the soup earlier in the week so I was able to heat that up and prepare the rest of the meal all at the same time.

But, let’s get back to today’s recipe. This casserole was seriously delicious, so let’s take one more look at the meat-less dish. If you give this recipe a try, lemme know what’cha think! :)

Yield: 8-10 Servings

Ingredients

2-4 tablespoons coconut oil
4 stalks celery, chopped
2 1/2 cups vegetable broth
2 sweet potatoes, chopped
2-4 carrots, sliced
2-4 parsnips, sliced
2 small zucchini, chopped
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 onions, chopped
3-5 baby portobello mushrooms, chopped
3-4 sprigs rosemary, finely chopped
coarse ground sea salt, to taste
coarse ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Melt the coconut oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. In batches, cook the celery, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, zucchini, 1 onion and 2 cloves of garlic. You may want to use multiple frying pans, if you'd like the process to go faster. If needed add more coconut oil between batches. Once the vegetables are tender but not completely soft remove them from the pan and add them to a casserole dish. Once all the vegetables are done stir them together in the casserole so you don't have layers of the same vegetable. Everything should be well combined.
Add the remaining onion, garlic and chopped mushrooms to an empty pan. Add rosemary and stir to combine.
When the onions are starting to get soft add the vegetable stock and bring to a boil.
Remove liquid from heat. Slowly and evenly pour the mixture over the top of the casserole.
Season the casserole with sea salt and ground black pepper.
Bake uncovered in the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until the top starts to crisp.
Remove from oven, let cool and serve.
Enjoy! :)

Root Vegetable Casserole

Paleo Vegetarian Dinner