Butterflied Pork Sausages, Mashed Root Vegetables and Corn on the Cob

I wanted to use up some pork sausages from in my freezer tonight so I created a meal around some fall favourites I find at our Farmer's Market this time of year. Hence the Mashed Root Vegetables (with roasted garlic, of course!) and fresh corn on the cob.

To butterfly sausage you simply hold them upright (so they curve upwards like a smile) and cut down but not all the way through, so you have something that looks like this )(... I fried them in a mixture of olive oil and butter, about 1 Tbsp. of each until they got a really nice crust on both sides, but not quite burnt. YUM!

Then I made the tweaked version of Mashed Root Vegetables with Roasted Garlic (from Everyday Flexitarian) and made it as follows:

Mashed Root Vegetables with Roasted Garlic:

1 large Yukon gold potato
1 medium rutabaga
3 small beets
2 carrots
1 head garlic, roasted (see next recipe)
1/2 cup butter, cubed

Peel and cut potato, rutabaga, beets and carrots into 1" cubes. Bring a pot of salted water to boil, add root vegetables; cover and reduce heat. Boil gently for 30 minutes. Drain and return to the pot with roasted garlic and butter. Mash or put through a food mill for a finer texture. Makes 8 servings. 

*NOTE: After making this and it turning out pink (looks interesting to say the least), I would buy golden beets next time for a lighter, less colourful look. A.k.a: The pink freaked out my son and he wouldn't eat it even though it was DELICIOUS.

How to Make Roasted Garlic: Preheat oven to 400*F. Remove the loose papery skin from the outside of a whole head of garlic by rubbing the head between your palms. Slice off and then discard the top 1/4" of the tips of all the cloves. Place the garlic head cut side up in a square of tinfoil, drizzle with EVOO. Wrap it up and bake it on the middle rack for 30 minutes. Let it cool and squeeze the cloves from their skins. The roasted cloves will be soft enough to mash and use in spreads, dips, sauces and other recipes.

Then the final touch to my meal was fresh corn on the cob. We LOVE Taber corn and always pick some up from the trucks when they're around town. I shuck them, remove the hairs, wrap them in tinfoil and bake at 350*F for 20-25 minutes. Serve with butter and salt for the yummiest side dish around.

Even though my son was skeptical of the pink vegetable mash, he ate the corn and sausages no problem. Try it out, let me know what your kids think of the pink mash ;)