Braised root vegetables with lentils

This vegetable extravaganza from Deborah Madison is perfect therapy for someone like me who cooks in order to something with their hands. There is a ton of peeling, slicing, chopping, mincing, boiling, sauteing, braising, mashing -- but the result is a rich, earthy stew that is perfectly satisfying.

Rather than duplicate the long and complicated recipe here, this time I will just refer to Madison's Local Flavors. There are 4 separate steps to produce this assembled dish. The first is make a red wine sauce with dried porcini, mushrooms, onion, carrot, celery, parsnip trimmings, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, rosemary, salt, pepper, flour, tomato paste, red wine, mushroom soy sauce and butter. Then you make the braised vegetable dish with red pearl onions, those parsnips you trimmed, carrots, mushrooms, olive oil, butter, and more more salt, pepper and aromatics and some that red wine sauce. Separately, you make a potato and rutabaga puree and in another separate pot, cook the lentils, either black "caviar" or French green. To assemble, make a mound of puree in a deep dish, spoon in the braised vegetables and the cooked lentils with more of the red wine sauce and top with chopped parsley. The red wine and aromatics give it a French country flavor. The root vegetables hold up well as leftovers.