I absolutely love root vegetables, with all the colors and all the earthy flavors. I am probably putting some of you off with this description, but IYKYK, right?

So with the root vegetables on sale these last few weeks, I stocked up and started to cook. First up was this panzanella salad, originally an Italian bread salad with tomatoes and onions, often also cucumbers. I took a bag (1 kg, approx. 2 pounds) of mixed root vegetables, peeled and diced into medium sized pieces. I tossed them in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and spread out in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Then I sprinkled course sea salt and pepper from the pepper mill over everything and lay a few sprigs of thyme here and there.

I hadn’t planned everything properly the first time I made this, so I didn’t have onions, but the second time I made it, I added shallots that I cut into wedges, and a few smashed cloves of garlic placed in between the vegetables.

I then baked everything for about 25 minutes in a 200 degree C oven, until tender but not mushy (except the garlic, that was mushy:))