The Gardener's Kitchen: Carrots

 

A carrot a day will keep the doctor away, no wait that is an apple a day. Carrots are a good source of Vitamin A which is how they got their reputation as being good for your eyes.

Carrots and apples are good companions, maybe not in the field but certainly at the dinner table. For example, a salad with cherry tomatoes, baby spinach, finely sliced apples (red), and shaved carrots is not only tasty but a bowl of good health.

A few sliced strawberries tossed in and it would be difficult to beat this dish for taste and nutrition.

Carrots are an ancient vegetable, often used for their alleged healing properties, but their history as a cultivated food is more recent. The Dutch are generally credited with starting the horticultural process that gave us the carrot that we know today.

Carrots can be eaten raw and go excellent with dips and in salads. They can be sued to make soup, or in stir fries and stews or simply as the vegetable part of any meal. I find carrots go very well with a roast beef or roast chicken, especially when cooked alongside the meat in the roasting pan.

Carrots can be grown in containers, raised beds or in a traditional garden bed.

 

 

The carrot is a root vegetable and thus a candidate for root vegetable pie.

 

 

Root Vegetable Pie:

Ingredients;

 

1 small carrot, thinly sliced

1 tbsp olive oil

2 medium turnips diced

1 medium onion sliced thin

1 russet apple, could use a Mac sliced thin

2 gloves garlic sliced

1 frozen pie shell

3 cups water

Sea salt to taste

 

Preparation;

 

1- In large sauce pot put in water

2- Add olive oil

3- Add sea salt

4- Bring to boil

5- Add turnips (turnips take longer to cook than potatoes so if you use potatoes add turnips 15 minutes before potatoes

6- Add carrots when you add the turnips

7- Cook ten minutes

8- Add apple and garlic

9- Cook 30 minutes

10- while vegetables are cooking, place pie shell in pre heated oven 350C for 7 minutes

11- Remove pie shell from oven add sliced onions to shell

12- Drain water off vegetables

13- Mash, can add a tsp butte or olive oil.

14- Place mashed ingredients in pie shell

15- Put in oven at 350 ca

16- Bake for 35 minutes.

I like carrots as a snack and often have carrot sticks sliced and in a sealed container in the refrigerator for just such purposes. They can be eaten as a snack or included in a bag lunch.

Carrots keep well in a cool dark place and if you can buy them in bulk when they are on sale which around here is usually in the fall.

 

 

Carrot Soup:

 

 

Ingredients:

1 lb carots sliced thin

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp chopped onion

1 quart vegetable or chicken stock

3 tbsp parboiled white rice

Sea salt to taste

 

 

Preparation:

1- In soup pot, gently cook the carrots and onion in half the butter

2- When tender add stock and rice

3- Add sea salt

4- Simmer for 20minutes

5- Pass soup through sieve

6- If puree is too stiff add some stock

7- Reheat soup with rest of butter

8- You can add some croutons if desired.

 

 

This is an inexpensive and simple dish that can be served with a green salad and a crusty roll.

Carrots are an ideal food for the home gardener and the cook. Enjoy.