As a (Canadian)Thanksgiving treat, I’m going to bare my soul and share a dirty, filthy secret that I’ve been carrying around for a long time. Despite coming from a family that farmed Newfoundland’s rocky, barren soil for literally hundreds of years, and despite having spent way too many summer days of my youth weeding our potatoes and carrots- I hate root vegetables.
Or at least I thought I did for years. As it turns out, I just hated the traditional way of preparing a lot of veggies- that is, boiling until the flavour is gone, then boiling until the texture is gone, then boiling for another 20 minutes after that. It may be the Newfoundland way, but patriotism be damned, I think it’s just gross. My dearly beloved mother, doing what any good mother would do, engaged in protracted battles with me throughout my younger years to get me to eat my vegetables. I can remember when I was perhaps 6 years old, sneaking the carrots off my plate and slipping them in the woodbox next to our furnace. I got away with this little trick for about a day until my father went to fill up the furnace and found mushy, day old carrots all over the spruce junks. I think I was grounded until I was 10 for that stunt.
Thankfully, I’ve discovered some fantastic alternatives to incessant boiling that can turn boring old root veggies into something exciting, or at least something somewhat more palatable. Here is one of my favourite carrot recipes- if it’s got me eating carrots, it’s got to be good.
Ingredients
- 1-2 lbs carrots, sliced down the middle and scrubbed
- 2 T olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic
- 3-4 sprigs of thyme
- 1/3 c red wine
- 2 T balsamic vinegar
- 1 t kosher salt
Method
- Place carrots in a CorningWare type dish. Add olive oil, wine, and vinegar and toss.
- Crack the garlic cloves with the side of knife and add to the dish, together with thyme.
- Cover dish tightly with aluminum foil and bake in oven at 400F for about 35 minutes.
- Remove foil and bake for another 10 minutes or so to let the carrots caramelize.
What makes this dish so great is that the first stage allows the flavours to blend and really permeate the carrots, while the second stage should caramelize the carrots and give a great texture. Instead of whole carrots, you can also use baby carrots, or even toss in some parsnips.
Enjoy! And if you don’t like how these turn out, you can always just ditch them in the woodbox and hope that nobody notices…
Photo by jek in the box.
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Sounds good- I’ll have to give this one a try to see if it’ll get anyone eating veggies.
btw, having a dog is the best way to get rid of unwanted food. Except for lima beans… dogs don’t like lima beans.
My bane was cooked peas - hated them, sat and stared at them long after everyone else left the table. Our table had a little ledge under the lip, and my trick was to sneak my peas one at a time there. I think my mother had the table refinished years later and found this row of petrified peas.
I’m better at eating my veggies these days but still do not like peas!