I recently went to Napa with some friends and we ended a long day of wine tasting at a BBQ place (Bounty Hunter BBQ) that had excellent food, but something that stood out to us all was the root vegetable side dish which was made with sage brown butter. I've never made brown butter before, so I figured I'd try to deconstruct this dish and make a variation of it. It was pretty easy!

Ingredients:
-1/2 a stick of butter
-1 parsnip
-1 yam
-1 sweet potato (yes there's a difference!)
-1/2 acorn squash (I'd have used a whole one but we'd have ended up with crazy leftovers, plus I'll roast the other half for another dinner, yum!)
-Fresh sage, finely chopped, about a heaping tablespoon. Have a little extra chopped for garnish
-Salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Preheat your oven to 375. Line a cookie sheet with tin foil
2. Peel and chop all of your vegetables evenly, about 1 inch cubes. In the case of the squash, I cut it into smaller wedges to peel it, and in the harder to reach spots, I cut off the skin with the knife post-cubing
3. Cut up your butter into little pats, this makes it easier for it to melt. Put it all in a sauce pot and allow it to melt
4. Once the butter melts, add the sage. Keep stirring the butter while it cooks, scraping the sides of the pot. It will foam up a little as it cooks
5. Once the butter foam has subsided (in my case it subsided then turned into a different consistency of foam, basically wait until it stops bubbling or changes color), continue to cook until the butter gets a slightly nut brown color (and it will smell like brown sugar or cookies...so delicious!), then remove from the heat. It will continue to cook even after the fact, so don't let it get too dark or you'll end up with black butter
6. Mix the butter and the chopped veggies in a large bowl and toss together. Don't over drench the veggies with the butter, just enough to coat them evenly. I didn't end up using all of it since some of my root veggies were smaller than others. Add salt and pepper to taste
7. Evenly spread out your root veggies onto the cookie sheet. Cover firmly with tin foil and bake for 40 minutes or until veggies are tender enough to poke with a fork easily
8. Uncover and bake for another 15-20 minutes to brown the veggies. Take out and sprinkle with some fresh sage for added garnish.

Enjoy!

Tasting this I'd say it's 90% close to what we had in the restaurant. I'm not sure if they added garlic or not, I couldn't remember. I know they used a different squash (butternut I think..pretty much any root veggies or orange squash you'd like would be tasty!)