Tangerine and Cardamom Glazed Roasted Winter Vegetables

This recipe was inspired by the Gluten Free Food Junkie and includes lots of changes of my own to make it a special addition to my holiday table. I titled this winter vegetables because you can easily change this up and use acorn squash, sweet potatoes or carrots and have delicious results. The preparation time includes the peeling the baby red onions. Though they add a special touch for presentation, you can cut the time and effort in half by using two small red onions and cutting them in eighths.

• Ready In: 1 hr
• Serves: 6-8

Ingredients

• 1 1⁄2 lbs  butternut squash (weight after preparation, see note in directions below)
• 4  medium parsnips
• 16  white pearl onions (these should be pearl RED onions, but that is not in the Zaar database)
• 1 1⁄2 tablespoons olive oil

• Glaze

• 7 -9  cardamom pods
• 4  teaspoons brown sugar
• 1⁄2 teaspoon tangerine zest
• 1⁄3 cup  fresh tangerine juice (about one large tangerine)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Prepare a 10x13-inch pan with a light coating of cooking spray or simply cover the pan with foil for a no fuss clean up.
3. Peel the baby onions by first trimming the tops and bottoms and gently peeling the skin. The more papery the exterior, the easier they will be to peel. Place into the baking pan. (If you are using the medium red onions, just barely trim the root end so that the wedges hold together during the roasting.).
4. Peel the squash and cut into one inch cubes. I tend to buy a squash much larger than needed so the neck part (without the seeds) will yield the 1 1/2 pounds of squash cubes needed. The rest of the squash is used in a mash or soup. Place into the baking pan.
5. Peel and trim the parsnips and cut into 1 1/2 inch lengths. For the thicker tops, split in half. If the core is thick and woody, you may want to cut part of it out. Place into the baking pan.
6. Toss the pan of vegetables with the olive oil and roast for about 20 minutes. The vegetables will have some color and tenderness but not fully done.
7. Whilst the vegetables are roasting , take the cardamom pods and place them in a mortar and gently crush so as to break open the pods. Remove the pods leaving the seed and continue to ground breaking the seeds into a coarse powder resembling fresh black pepper. Yield will be about 1/2 teaspoon.
8. Combine the cardamom with the other glaze ingredient and mix to dissolve the brown sugar. (I used Splenda brown sugar blend.).
9. Pour the glaze over the vegetables and toss. Roast for 5 minutes and add salt to taste, in my case this was about 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt. Mix and roast for an additional 5 minutes. The glaze with have thickened into a medium syrup and created a nice caramelization on the vegetables.
10. Place in serving bowl being certain to include any syrup on the bottom of the roasting pan.
11. Enjoy!