It appears my honeymoon with upside down food is far from over.

I became caught up on the idea that I needed parsnips for our Fall Feast meal. And really, I’m not sure why. I’ve never really liked parsnips that much, but it had to be. My purchasing option for local/organic + online/curbside was by the pound, so a pound of parsnips it was! This led me down the rabbit hole of parsnips recipes when I came across this dazzling gem from Bon Appetit. I used this Smitten Kitchen crust (lazily). The result had me drooling before it was even flipped.

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Ingredients – 9″ pie dish, serves 8, 360 calories per serving

Crust:

• 1.25 c all-purpose flour
• 0.25 tsp kosher salt
• 8 tbsp butter (unsalted)
• 0.25 cup sour cream
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 0.25 c iced water

Filling

• 1 medium (5 inch long) sweet potato
• 1 extra large carrot (purple dragon seen here)
• 2 small parsnips
• 1 small squash (approx. 12 ounces), Delicata
• 0.25 c olive oil (or canola oil)
• salt, pepper, + garlic powder
• 0.33 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp water
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar (or white whine vinegar)
• 1 tsp each rosemary + sage
• 1 small red onion
• 1 ounce feta
• 4 tbsp shredded parmesan
• 0.50 cup shredded mozzarella

Preheat oven to 400°F, with your rack in the bottom 1/3 of the oven.

Begin by making the crust. In a large bowl, combine flour and salt. Cut a stick of butter hot-dog ways into four… smaller sticks. Dice these sticks and add to the flour. Use a pastry cutter (or your hands), until the largest chunks of butter are about pea size; make a well in the center. In a separate bowl, whisk together 1/4 c ice water + 1/4 c sour cream. Add 2 tsp lemon juice and dump this mixture into your well. Stir/fold until it just starts to come together. Roll out a sheet of plastic wrap. Use your hand to mash the “dough” into a ball, then flatten into a disk. Wrap tightly in plastic and refrigerate.

Meanwhile, maybe your oven is hot (mine was not yet). Rinse and pat dry all your vegetables. Grab a ruler or measuring tape (no joke). Cut carrot, parsnips, and sweet potato into 1/2 inch coins/circles/rounds. Cut the sweet potato last because it is the most likely to oxidize. Toss coins into a bowl. Trim the ends off the delicata, cut lengthwise in half, scoop seeds + goop into the compost. Slice into 1/2 inch thick half moons and toss into bowl. Coat with oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Hopefully this took long enough to let your oven finish heating.

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Spread the veg on a baking sheet, in a single layer, not touching (socially distanced veg roast more evenly). Roast ~15 minutes, flip, roast another 10-15 minutes until tender and lightly browned.

These need to cool a bit so you can handle them. After you pull them from the oven (please don’t turn it off like I did), begin to make your caramel. Yes, caramel.

Into a small (no bigger than a quart) sauce pan add 1/3 c sugar and 2 tbsp water. Have your pinch of salt and 1 tbsp vinegar handy. Cook over medium-high heat, swirling occasionally. You may want to stir, but I don’t recommend it. Swirl and succumb.

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You’re cooking this bubbling monstrosity until it turns “amber colored”. Don’t walk away. And have your pie tin handy and at least room temp. You may want to put it in the oven for a minute or two if your house is as cold as mine (65°F in the kitchen!).

Now comes the scary part!! To your amber colored, molten hot sugar water, throw in your pinch of salt and gingerly, from afar, the tbsp of vinegar. It will crackle and sputter and bubble and pop. Keep swirling. Quickly add this to your pie dish and and swirl around to coat. My pie tin was too cold and I was too slow so this part was unpleasant. I used a silicone spatula to spread it as best I could, but this caramel will harden in about 45 seconds.

Sprinkle the caramel with the rosemary and sage. Arrange your roasted root vegetables in whatever way is pleasing to you in a single layer. Use the smaller pieces to fill in any gaps. Mash things out of shape if you need to. Heck, even if you just want to.

Cut the red onion in 1/2 inch rounds, and “evenly” spread separated rings on top of the roasted veg. Top this with your three cheese mixture.

Remove the dough from the fridge, roll out into a ~12″ round, lay this on top of the veg/cheese and tuck the edges down into the dish. Stab with a fork, somewhat gingerly, but all over. And then a few more times for good measure.

Bake for 20 minutes, then turn the heat down to 350°F for another 20 minutes. At this point, my tarte tatin was not as browned as I would have liked, so I broiled it on high for about 5-7 minutes. The caramel started bubbling up and over and I decided we were done. Remove from the oven, rest 5 minutes, then flip over onto a large plate.

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This actually tastes at least as good as it looks. The vegetables are tender and creamy, the cheese has caramelized, and even after cooling the crust remained flaky and crisp.

If you’ve made it this far, here are some bonus pictures of the mostly local, mostly organic Fall Feast we enjoyed.

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We got a muscovy duck from Webbed Foot Pines, which came with all its bits! This meant a duck liver pate appetizer. Then a sort of traditional feast of green bean casserole (my green beans and homemade cream of mushroom soup with chanterelles + hedgehog mushrooms from my dad), creamy mashed potatoes and roasted veg from Tantre Farm, Annie’s mac + cheese, and the most decadent bourbon caramel pecan ice cream pie from Go Ice Cream.

This might be the strangest year yet, but we are making sure to eat well!