Healthy Side Dish: Roasted Beets and Carrots with Dill

OK...full disclosure...I ate this as my dinner the other night. But in a normal home, roasted golden beets and carrots with dill would make a colorful, healthy side dish. The great thing is that the carrots get really creamy when they're roasted, and the flavor of the beets works perfectly alongside them.

Roasted Beets and Carrots with Dill

• Three golden beets, peeled and chopped into roughly 1.5-inch chunks
• Four carrots, chopped into chunks of the same size
• 3 tbsp. olive oil
• 1/4 cup fresh chopped dill
  
• Salt and pepper to taste
  

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place the beets and carrots in a roasting dish.

2. Pour the olive oil over the vegetables, and stir them around so that they're coated.

3. Sprinkle the dill, salt, and pepper over the vegetables. Put the dish into the oven.

4. Cook for about 30 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. To test this, poke a fork into the center of a beet or a carrot. The fork should meet little resistance. Beets will take a bit longer than carrots to cook all the way through, but it shouldn't hurt the carrots to cook for a little bit longer.

5. Remove the veggies from the oven, and set them to the side to cool for a few minutes before serving.

My favorite thing about this dish is that it's healthy and simple. Beets are fantastic for your health, and the flavors of the vegetables are the focus, not some fatty sauce. As a bonus, roasting the veggies will also allow you to work on your main dish with fewer pots on the stove to manage.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this would work beautifully if you were to purée it with some chicken stock and butter to make a soup. Maybe next time!