Suddenly there is music in the sound of your name

Rosemary.

It's a race to the finish as my root vegetables soften before I go ahead and eat them. This is a tale of three relatively successful dinners in a row.

Monday: Spaghetti Squash with Thai Peanut Sauce
At the suggestion of a friend I tried this recipe, and if you do too I suggest printing the recipe out right now, or saving the text in a Word file. The website is wonky (I cooked this a few days after I intended to because I couldn't get the site to load at the critical moment) and it's one of those pages with a lot going on. Even the process of calling it up to post the link here slowed my computer way down.

• The best part: scooping out the roasted spaghetti squash. I was prepared for that to be an annoying process, but it was super fun.
• The worst part: buying entire jars of things only to use a few spoonfuls. This mainly refers to the red curry paste (which I already have a plan for), the sesame oil (which I know I could have subbed out, but I kinda wanted sesame oil), and the soy sauce (which I suppose will inspire me to do more Asian cooking). The coconut sugar I just laughed out loud at. There's always something that makes me laugh out loud, and this time, that was it.
• The improvised part: Since the recipe was a little vague on which herb I should use, I used all of them. My mom clipped me some herbs from her herb garden and I figured it was now or never. I chopped up basil, sage, chives, and parsley. I stopped short of adding rosemary (foreshadowing) and mint.

Also: arugula and tomato salad.

Tuesday: Leftover Thai Peanut Sauce With Noodles and Steamed Vegetables

At first I was annoyed when Monday's recipe only called for a 1/4 cup of the pint of peanut sauce it had me make, but the leftover sauce made a delicious meal over egg noodles and steamed broccoli and carrots. I have a picture for you:

Wednesday: A Parade of Roasted Root Vegetables

My beets and radishes were getting pillowy soft, so it was time to eat them lest I discover what stage comes after pillowy soft. I decided to roast the beets since the last time I boiled a beet I got yelled at. I searched for "roasting beets" and Google cheerfully responded in the voice of Bobby Flay. As long as I was roasting beets I decided to do the same with the radishes and the rest of my carrots, for which this recipe conveniently presented itself. I used fresh rosemary instead of dried thyme, and it has made all the difference. Everything was yummy, but:

• The recipe called for baby carrots and I used regular (peeled, don't worry) carrots, so they were a little al dente despite being left in longer.
• The beet recipe said 45-60 minutes, but it took a full 90 to cook these beets, which were slightly smaller than cantaloupes. 
• The beets were a bitch to peel, unlike boiled beets where the peel slides right off.
• The roasted beets tasted EXACTLY THE SAME as boiled beets.

Also, slightly wilty and blackened arugula and limp tomato salad