Vegan Roast

I eat a lot of vegan style foods since I've got a few intolerances not to mention esophagitis.  In short I don't eat fish, seafood, gluten, dairy, anything fatty, spicy, or acidic.  Drives my hubby nuts that I'm not a meat eater really, but I at least figure, well I can make him meat separately.  This was last nights dinner.  Roasted veggies with seasoned rice and nuts.  I LOVED it.

Roasted Veggies

1 large sweet potato

2 standard size Idaho Potatoes
1 large beet

1 handful of baby carrots (or 2 carrots. Or to your satisfaction. I just don't like cooked carrots)

Italian seasoning
Salt
Garlic (I use powder, the raw fresh stuff makes my esophagitis flare.  If you can eat it though, roasted garlic with it would be heavenly)

Olive Oil

First I preheated my oven to 425 degrees. I then chopped all my veggies into about 1 inch by 1/2 inch thick slices, leaving the baby carrots as is.  I then placed them in a single layer on a cookie sheet, coating them lightly with spices.  (I don't heavily spice my foods anymore due to esophagitis.  Season them to your liking).  I then sprinkled olive oil over the veggies and placed them in the oven.  40 minutes later I pulled them out and they were beautiful!  I turned off the oven and then placed them back in to keep them warm while I figured out what to make with them.

I settled on:

Sweet Seasoned Rice

1 cup rice

2 cups water (or required amount of water as requested on package)

Star Anise

Nutmeg
Cinnamon

Garlic

Salt

I prepared my rice in a saucepan since I didn't have a pot clean.  I put a pinch of each of the spices in the rice and water before cooking the rice as prepared on the package.  (I admittedly did end up forgetting about the rice so I boiled the water completely out and burned the bottom layer of rice, however the rest was perfectly wonderful and didn't taste burnt so I used it) I layered it on the plate and then put it in the oven to keep it warm.

Finally I prepared nuts (and meat in a separate pan with separate utensils the same way for my hubby)

Sweet Nuts

Sliced Almonds
Chopped Walnuts
Star Anise
Nutmeg
Cinnamon Sugar
1 tsp butter

I just put everything in a small saucepan on low heat, and frequently stirred so the nuts didn't burn.  (Burned nuts are AWFUL) once the nuts were coated and the spices were sticking I took them off the heat.  Tradition in my mom's house (she makes sugar coated almonds which inspired this topping) is to put them on tin foil to cool and then store the leftovers.  So I did exactly that.


FINALLY it was time to put my masterpiece together.  I pulled out my rice plate out of the oven, and then the veggies.  I gave myself a very generous helping of the veggies, and then heavily sprinkled nuts over the rice and veggies.  It turned out like this:

(And it was VERY delicious!)