Carrots

Carrots

Carrots are one of the most fun and versatile vegetables out there, although they are deceptively ubiquitous and thus, unfortunately end up as the bland, overcooked endgame of a lot of recipes. Carrots feel like the nondescript, reliable friend that hides a vast, sprawling secret love of poetry. Not many other vegetables can span across almost every cooking culture and even make their way innocuously into fluffy cakes or even gingery sorbets.

Growing Lots’ carrots are sweet and tender, and the tri-colored variety offers a few varying levels of sweetness while still holding up to a good baking (or even grilling). I like to roast them until they are almost a bit crispy and blackened on the edges, rounding out their sweet caramelization with a note of bitterness. If I’m feeling lazy on a hot day, but still want to add some vegetables into whatever I’m eating, I’ll shave a few coins on a mandolin and have them over top of cooked salmon, or tossed into a salad for a bit of crunch.

The grassy tops, similar to parsley, can be used for pestos or in salads as a nice herbaceous bite, allowing usage of the entire carrot!

Some Carrot Recipes

Roasted Carrot Fries with Tahina

Ingredients:

About one pound of carrots, washed well, peeled if you’d like, and halved (or quartered if they’re quite large)

1 tablespoon of neutral oil

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

½ teaspoon chopped garlic (or garlic powder)

Optionally, ¼ cup parmesan, grated or microplaned (or ¼ cup nutritional yeast if you’d like to keep it dairy free!)

1 tablespoon chopped parsley (or carrot tops!)

4 medium-to-large cloves garlic, pressed or minced

¼ cup lemon juice

½ cup tahini

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

Pinch of ground cumin

6 tablespoons ice water, but more as needed

Method:

For the carrot fries, preheat your oven to 400*.

In a bowl, combine the carrots with the oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, lemon zest, and parmesan, if using. Spread the carrots on a baking sheet, being careful not to crowd the sheet.

Bake the carrots for approximately 15-20 minutes, until they are tender and lightly browned. Once they are cooked, remove them from the oven and toss with fresh parsley or carrot tops, and nutritional yeast, if using.  Salt a little more as needed, and serve with tahina.

For the tahina, let the minced garlic marinate in the lemon juice for about 20 minutes, and then strain it out, pressing the garlic against the sieve with a spoon to really get those bits of juice out of there. Reserve the garlic for another use (like roasting with the carrot fries). Whisk the tahini, salt, and cumin into a bowl, adding ice water a few tablespoons at a time to help keep the mixture from seizing. The ideal tahina is fluffy and soft! From here, you can adjust the seasoning as you’d like, with extra lemon, salt, or cumin.

Turmeric Dill Pickled Carrots

Ingredients:

4-6 medium carrots, scrubbed and peeled

½ an onion, julienned

3 cloves of garlic, crushed but left whole

A good little bunch of dill, approximately 4-5 stalks

3/4 cup apple cider vinegar

½ cup water

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon turmeric powder

½ teaspoon black peppercorns

½ teaspoon mustard seed

1 teaspoon coriander seed

1 teaspoon sugar

Method:

Begin by cutting the carrots into large matchsticks (I usually doing this by halving the carrots, then quartering each piece, until they’ll fit into a glass mason jar), or alternately you can slice the carrots into coins. Place the carrots into a pint sized mason jar along with the sliced onion, dill, and garlic cloves.

Bring the apple cider vinegar, water, salt, and the rest of the ingredients for the brine up to a boil on the stove. Once it is boiling, pour it carefully over the carrot mixture in the jar. Let it come down to room temperature, then seal the jar with a lid. Refrigerate overnight and enjoy the next day!

Carrot, Apple, and Beet Salad with Kale

Ingredients:

4 carrots, scrubbed (and optionally, peeled)

1 apple (Fuji or Honeycrisp preferred, but whatever feels good!)

2 small or 1 medium beet, peeled

½ a bunch of kale, stemmed

Any mix of fresh herbs to taste, such as: carrot tops, parsley, cilantro, or basil

Toasted nuts or seeds to taste, such as pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, sliced almonds, or chopped cashews

½ cup of apple cider, rice wine, or white wine vinegar

2 teaspoons honey or maple syrup

1 teaspoon of dijon mustard

1 tablespoon of salt

1 cup of neutral oil

½ teaspoon chili flake

Method:

Begin by chopping the carrots, beets, and apples into thin slices (or matchstick them with a mandolin). Stem the kale and roll it up into one big wrap, then slice it thinly into a chiffonade. Toss all of the salad ingredients into a bowl and give it a mix. Tear some fresh herbs into the salad, and add some nuts or seeds if you would like.

For the dressing, combine the vinegar, sweetener, mustard, chili flake, and salt in a bowl, then slowly drizzle the oil in while whisking constantly. Season to taste. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss to combine. Garnish with a few more herbs over top and more seeds, as you’d like.

writing credit: Sadie Sayre, CSA member

Beets

Beets

Ahhh, beets. Nature’s candy! Just kidding, but they do feel like a zaftig gem that I often forget about until I’m biting into unctuous, meaty wedges of beet, and am taken aback by their unabashed alacrity. It’s my own loss that I forget about the magic of beets, until I finally roast some up and fall back in love with them, a surprise every single time. The irony here, of course, is that when I was once a chef at a fine dining restaurant in Minneapolis, my one highlight dish on the menu was a sweet little beet salad, tempered by an earthy pistachio pistou, blanched lemon peel, and the bitter pop of torn radicchio leaves. The beets were buried at the bottom of the plate and it now feels like a perfect metaphor for my rediscovery of beets, an awakening in every single bite.

Last summer when I got beets with my Growing Lots CSA, I saved up a couple weeks’ worth of them (they keep in a crisper drawer really well), and then roasted them until their skins slipped off easily. After that, I pickled them in a sweeter, gingery brine with some coriander seeds, and proceeded to throw those beets into any dish I could think of! I feel like I’ve waxed poetic about roasted beets a lot through here, but there’s also something to be said, on a hot day where turning on the oven just won’t do, for thinly shaved beets tossed with a little lemon juice, olive oil, crunchy salt, and maybe a little arugula for a peppery, astringent note to offset the full body of the beets.

Like carrot tops, beet greens can be reserved and used in any recipe that recommends chard, spinach, or bok choy. The greens are intensely earthy, but retain their texture well and are a lot of fun to throw in with a last minute pasta or salad!

Some Beet Recipes

Simply Roasted Beets (and a recipe to pickle them, as well)

Ingredients:

2 pounds of beets, scrubbed but left whole

A drizzle of oil, salt, and pepper

Enough water to fill the bottom of the pan, about 1”

To pickle the roasted beets, you’ll need…

¾ cup apple cider vinegar

¾ cup water

¼ cup fresh ginger, sliced

A couple bay leaves, if you have them

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon of coriander seeds

2 star anise

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

1 teaspoon salt

Method:

To roast your beets, preheat your oven to 375. Scrub the beets, then oil them up and give them a little sprinkling of salt and pepper. I’m never sure if this seasoning actually makes a difference, but it certainly can’t hurt. Pop the beets in a baking dish, then add water. Put a lid (or a tight wrap of foil should do the trick) over the top of the baking dish, and place the baking dish in the oven for between 45 minutes to a little over an hour, depending on their size. 

Take them out and check on them at any time, but the beets will be perfect when they can be pierced easily all the way through with a fork. All of the water might evaporate, and that’s okay--it’s just to give the beets a little bit of an extra steam so the core can cook through as well.

Let the beets cool, and then the skins should just slip right off as you rub them! I hold them inside of a towel that I don’t mind staining, and paper towels work fine too. If the skins seem a little sticky, it’s fine to take a peeler to them once they’re all cooked.

To pickle the beets, once they are peeled, slice them into wedges (or round slices) and add them to a pint sized mason jar with the sliced ginger. Bring all of the brine ingredients up to a boil and then pour them over the beets. Let cool and refrigerate overnight before enjoying!

Shaved Root Vegetable and Crispy Chickpea Salad with Sumac Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

2 medium beets, peeled

1 bulb of fennel, halved but core intact

1 medium kohlrabi, peeled

½ a red florence onion

Torn or chopped herbs, including: fennel fronds, garlic chives, parsley, basil, and mint

A few segments of orange of grapefruit

1 can of chickpeas, liquid drained

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ teaspoon black pepper

½ teaspoon ground cumin

¼ teaspoon smoked paprika

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup champagne vinegar

2 tablespoons honey or maple syrup

1 tablespoon sumac, plus more for garnish

¾ cup olive oil

1 lemon, juiced

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

Method:

To make the salad, simply shave all of the vegetables finely on a mandolin or slice them very finely by hand. (I’m terrible at this, so I really recommend a mandolin if you can!) Keep all of your vegetables separate until it’s time to plate, or the beets will bleed all over everything. The herbs can be torn and mixed together, and the fruit segments can sit in their own juice until you’re ready.

To roast the chickpeas, give them a good rinse and try to remove some of the outer skins if you can--but don’t fuss over it too much. Dry them on a baking sheet with paper towels on either side until they are pretty dry, then toss the chickpeas with the oil, salt, and spices. Spread them flat on a baking sheet and bake them at 375 for 45-60 minutes, giving them a shake or stir every 15 or so minutes, until they are crispy and browned (but not hard and dark).

To make the vinaigrette, combine the vinegar, honey, sumac, lemon juice, salt, and pepper in a mason jar, and give everything a good hard couple of shakes, then add the olive oil and shake that up as well.

To serve, toss the vegetables together with the vinaigrette to taste and adjust the seasoning with more salt, pepper, or lemon as needed. Garnish with the crispy chickpeas, more sumac if you’d like, and more fresh herbs on top!

Beet Latkes with Horseradish Sour Cream

Ingredients:

1 medium russet potato (270 g), peeled

1 large or 2 small beets, peeled

1 medium yellow onion

1 large egg

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

¼ cup (30 g) all-purpose flour

Freshly ground black pepper

Vegetable oil, for frying

1 tablespoon kosher salt

¼ cup prepared horseradish

1 cup sour cream (or yogurt works too!)

2 tablespoons chopped chives or scallions

1 teaspoon of salt, and a little more to taste

1 teaspoon of lemon juice

Method:

For the latkes, grate the potato coarsely on the large holes of a box grater (or in a food processor using the grating blade). Wrap the grated potatoes in a clean kitchen towel and squeeze vigorously to get rid of any excess liquid. Transfer to a large bowl. Do the same with the onion. If you don’t care about staining your dish towel, do the same with the beets--otherwise, grate the beets and squeeze out the moisture by hand; add to the bowl with the potatoes and onion. Add the egg, thyme, flour, and black pepper; mix to combine.

Line a plate with paper towels. Fill a large nonstick skillet with vegetable oil to a depth of ¼ inch and heat the oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, stir the salt into the latke mixture, pick up a small handful, and squeeze out even more liquid (depending on the potato and onion you use, you might have quite a lot of liquid).

Shape the mixture into round, flat patties about 3 inches in diameter and carefully add them to the hot oil. Leave yourself  plenty of room between the latkes to flip them! Fry until the latkes are crunchy and slightly browned, about 3 minutes on each side. Transfer to the paper towels to drain. Salt the latkes once you pull them out of the oil.

For the horseradish sour cream, simply combine the horseradish, sour cream, chives, lemon juice, and salt in a bowl and adjust seasoning as needed.

Bonus: Beet Chocolate Cake

Of course, I don’t have my own well-tested recipe for this, but just thought that I would include this recipe (thanks Bon Appetit) because beets in sweets can’t be beat!: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/heartbeet-chocolate-cake

writing credit: Sadie Sayre, CSA member