[2] These days, it’s easy to buy beets that are cooked, peeled, and ready to eat.

The greens of summer give way to the colorful root vegetables of fall: poetic and good for you.

What’s also good is that this recipe, from LoveBeets.com, uses only one pan. Prep time is 15 minutes, cooking time is 40 minutes.
 
 
RECIPE: ROAST CHICKEN WITH ROOT
VEGETABLES

Ingredients For 4 Servings

1. PREHEAT the oven to 425°F.

2. COMBINE potatoes, beets, carrots, turnips, onion and garlic in a large roasting pan. Drizzle the olive oil over the vegetables and then pour over the wine. Tuck the thyme sprigs in-between the vegetables. Season well with salt and pepper.

3. SEASON the chicken legs all over with salt and pepper and lay them on top of the vegetables. Cover loosely with foil and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

4. REMOVE the foil from the pan and return to the oven. Bake for another 20-25 minutes or until the chicken is golden and crisp and the vegetables are cooked through.
 
 
WHAT ARE ROOT VEGETABLES

Root vegetables are plant roots that are eaten as vegetables. The term is used to refer to any part of the plant that grows underground, including the onion/garlic family, which are technically classified as bulbs. Often, the stems and leaves of these plants can also be eaten.

We’ve written about Sara Snacker cookies in the past, a business that began a decade ago in Sara’s college dorm room in Arizona. These days, the mother of three runs her business from New York City.

We enjoy most of the line very much, and are always happy when a new sample rolls in.

This week, we trued the company’s first gluten-free, dairy-free cookie: Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chippy.

While they don’t come out of the package looking like much (there’s a lot of cookie “dust”), they go into the mouth tasting great. We couldn’t stop eating them. The 12 cookie balls lasted maybe 24 hours.

The ingredients are all natural, and include creamy peanut butter, crunchy whole grain oats and semisweet chocolate chips.

In addition to a gluten-free recipe, the cookies are certified kosher by Star-D.

There’s a store locator on the website. The retailers are largely on the East Coast, but you can shop online at SaraSnacker.com.

Or, in our case, a peanut butter lover who isn’t on a gluten-free diet can happily make them disappear.
  

You can buy sparkling cider, or you can make it by adding seltzer to regular cider, in this idea from Polar Seltzer. It dilutes the cider—the cider version of a wine spritzer—but you can make that up with rum.

It goes from mocktail to cocktail with a splash of rum—preferably, spiced rum for more complex flavors.

You can create the drink it in any glass, but we prefer a tall highball.

RECIPE: SPARKLING CIDER COCKTAIL

Ingredients

Variation: Ginger Cider

Mix ginger ale and apple cider in your preferred proportions. It can be a mocktail or a cocktail, with rum or tequila.