Enjoying Carrots

I’m sure you haven’t missed the fact that the Ultimate Healthy Living bundle is on sale this week. (Update: The sale is now over. 🙁 )  As one of my biggest needs right now is food options that work for us, one of the first things I did was skim through all of the recipe books and jot down a list of all the recipes that appealed to me.  (Some of them you saw show up in my “2 weeks’ menu” post.)  By far the most of them came from Debra Worth’s Much Ado About Chicken and The Veggie Book – including this recipe for Spice it Up Carrot Fries.  (I’ll share the recipe farther down.)

We had ten pounds of carrots in the fridge that I really needed to do something with.  That’s what happens when you buy a 5-pound bag, forgetting that you already have a 5-pound bag.  I like carrots, but I don’t have that kind of room in my refrigerator!  So this was a great recipe to tackle first.

Making the Spice it Up Carrot Fries

First I used my handy-dandy vegetable scrub cloth to quickly clean the dirt off the carrots, and I peeled them.

I also trimmed off the ends.  Now don’t throw those peelings and ends away!  Grab your copy of From Garbage to Gourmet from the bundle to find out how to make the most of those, too.

Cut the carrots into sticks.

Mix your spices together.  (If you decide you like these carrot fries  after making them once, you could mix the spices up in bulk and have a shaker on hand for seasoning the carrots next time.)

Spread the carrot sticks out on a baking sheet, sprinkle them with the seasoning mixture, and toss to coat.  (Be sure they get spread back out afterward, though.)

Then drizzle with coconut oil (or plop the oil on in little chunks or dollops if it isn’t currently liquid; it’ll melt in the oven).

Pop the tray in the preheated oven and stir at the appropriate intervals.  When they come out, the fries will look something like this, and be tasty and tender.

Next time, I will probably use a little less chili powder.  They were a bit spicy for my taste for what they are.  (I suspect different chili powders may vary in heat, too.)  But they were yummy!

Spice it Up Carrot Fries

Debra Worth

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Course Appetizer/Snack

Cuisine Gluten-Free

Servings 1 -3

Ingredients

  

• 7-9 carrots cut into evenly sized sticks I used 7 large ones.
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. onion powder
• 1/2 tsp. paprika
• 1/4 tsp. turmeric
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. chili powder
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. coconut oil

Instructions

 

• Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Put as many carrot sticks as you can fit onto your sheet pan. If there are any pieces that are a lot smaller than the others, you will want to leave them off as they will burn. (Debra's note: I use stone sheet pans because I have a much better success rate. They tend to burn quickly on metal pans. Rachel's note: The ones you see in this post were made on a metal pan.)
• Sprinkle the seasonings over the carrots and toss to coat them. Some of the seasonings will clump up; that is fine.
• If you have liquid coconut oil, drizzle it on top. If it is solid evenly space bits of coconut oil over the carrots.
• In five minutes, stir the carrots. (Rachel's note: I also managed to miss stirring my carrots on time - and the last time - as I was getting kids into bed. They still turned out okay.)
• Stir every ten minutes for 30-40 minutes until the carrots are nice and caramelized and have a wrinkly surface. Eat and Enjoy.

This post is being shared at Gluten-Free Friday, Whole Food Fridays, Centsibly Sugar- and Gluten-Free, Traditional Tuesdays, Fat Tuesday, Tuesday Green, Healthy Tuesday Hop, Tips & Tricks Tuesday, Meatless Monday, Wildcrafting Wednesday, Wednesday Fresh Foods Linkup, Allergy-Free Wednesdays, Gluten-Free Wednesdays, Waste Not Want Not Wednesday.

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