Jun

29

Baby Carrots and Homegrown Roasted Veggies

June 29, 2008 |

inseason.jpg

Gardening is an exercise in optimism. Sometimes,
it is a triumph of hope over experience.
- Marina Schinz

The In Season series is a web diary of the gardening successes and mishaps of two eternally hopeful novices. The ladybug above will lead you to previous posts in the series.

Baby carrots: Red, Yellow, Orange and White

When I first came to the U.S. all ready to be inducted into the Hall of Suckerdom, I thought the NBA World Series actually had teams participating from around the world. And that baby carrots were just that - fledgling carrots on their way to becoming adults.

Now I know better. When teams from the U.S play against each other, it’s the ‘World’ series, ‘cos … we say so. Just deal with it.

And ‘baby carrots’ in the supermarket are actually ‘baby-cut carrots‘ - adult carrots chopped into smaller pieces. This was the brainwave of California farmer Mike Yurosek.

Yurosek was unhappy at having to discard as much as 400 tons of carrots a day because of slight rotting or imperfections, and looked for a way to reclaim what would otherwise be a waste product. He was able to acquire an industrial green bean cutter, which cut his carrots into two lengths, and by placing these lengths into an industrial potato peeler, he created the original baby carrot, branded “Bunny-Luv.” In 2006, nearly three-quarters of the fresh baby carrots produced in the United States came from Bakersfield, California.
(Wiki)

Baby-cut Carrots. Wikimedia Commons

Chop up carrots that were originally thrown away, mark them up, and laugh all the way to the bank. Now, if I see ‘baby’ anything in the supermarket, I move on.

Real baby carrots will have an ‘eye’ at the top of each carrot and usually come with the greens attached. The impostors look like little logs, even all over. Flavour-wise, there’s no comparison.

A month or two ago we scattered a whole lot of seeds in our garden patch - too many in fact. Now, we have a tangled mass of stems. We thinned out the patch today and got a bunch of baby carrots, parsnips and beets.

Organic homegrown baby carrots

Carrots and beets are a great return on investment ‘cos the greens are edible too. Parsnip greens are not, but we absolutely love the roots.

Our lunch today was homegrown.

Multi-coloured baby carrots roasted with baby beets, baby parsnips, sweet potato, crookneck squash, purple spring onions, and garnished with carrot greens and onion greens. We roasted them with some olive oil and salt. That’s it.

Everything except the sweet potato came from our garden.

Homegrown Roasted Veggies go to Pam @ Sidewalk Shoes for Weekend Herb Blogging.

-b.

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31 Comments so far

  1. Cham on June 29, 2008 3:24 pm

    I have never seen multi-colored carrots, That is wonderful crop!

  2. OhioMom on June 29, 2008 4:38 pm

    What a wonderfully colorful dish, I love roasted veggies … I had to LOL at the “baby” carrots sold in cellophane packages in the grocer, yucky !!

  3. Priya on June 29, 2008 6:03 pm

    eeks, I did not know about the “baby” carrots! :( and WOW at the crop of veggies you got. Great job you guys…

  4. Shibani on June 29, 2008 6:03 pm

    wonderful to see multicolour carrots and of course the roasted platter looks awesome.I have never tried baby beets, must be tating heavenly.

  5. Maheswari on June 29, 2008 6:16 pm

    Platter looks delicious and healthy.I too didn’t know about baby carrots and about “world series” , H spend about 1 hour explaining during last season..:D

  6. manggy on June 29, 2008 6:16 pm

    Oh, goodness, that looks fantastic. I’m a carrot fan but not when it’s all woody and tough and humongous. Problem is, only a few enterprising farmers here know there’s a market for baby carrots!

  7. Manisha on June 29, 2008 7:05 pm

    Ack! I just threw away carrot greens after staring at them for the longest time. What do you do with them?
    they taste like mild parsley (same family). you can make pesto, chutney, dal, couscous with it.

  8. Dee on June 29, 2008 7:09 pm

    Bee. i have been thinking the same about baby carrots until this post. I am glad that every time I visit your blog, there is a new post.. No more disappointments where Im staring into an older post every morning when I come here…. I love the combo of root veggies… maybe I’d try a zunka and see how it turns out…

  9. enjay on June 29, 2008 7:43 pm

    Delightful summer dish. Sometimes I think everything tastes better roasted, but my pick of that lot would be the baby beets..Yumm.

  10. Madhuram on June 29, 2008 7:59 pm

    I knew about the baby cut carrots in one of Rachel Ray’s 30 minute meals show. See, she is not all ranting! She enlightened me on this one!

  11. Suganya on June 29, 2008 8:19 pm

    You could have also thrown in a halved bulb of garlic. Vegetables are always inspiring.

  12. rachel on June 29, 2008 8:32 pm

    Wow I’m surprised I didn’t know about the baby cut carrots…Hmmm!!! And I paid more for it!!!

  13. Miri on June 29, 2008 9:04 pm

    Thanks for that piece of info….haven’t ever seen baby carrots, but babycorn is all over here - hope they are not the same story…

    Loce roasted veggies - i put a few cloves of garlic and some fresh mint or coriander - gives the most amazing taste ever!

    Love the multicoloured dish

    Miri

  14. Mansi on June 29, 2008 9:38 pm

    wow, that looks colorful, which generally also means healthy:) I envy you your garden folks! nice work guys….perhaps you could send this to my Healthy cooking event!:)

  15. Jyothsna on June 29, 2008 10:31 pm

    OMG! I’ve been buying baby carrots and wondering why they looked like logs of wood!! I think I should google before buying anything!!

  16. sushma on June 29, 2008 10:50 pm

    I hvnt seen multicoloured carrots and that plate looks yum.. and how nice to have organic food

  17. Bharti on June 30, 2008 12:39 am

    That is a wonderful bounty. Pretty pictures and I bet that tasted amazing!

  18. sra on June 30, 2008 2:35 am

    We get small carrots here that are shaped like carrots, you know, tapered, straggly end and all - not sure what they are, technically.

  19. Asha on June 30, 2008 4:53 am

    LOL! Those store bought “baby” carrots are “big” carrots cut to look like babies indeed! We know it but still buy it anyway!:D

    Great job with real colorful babies. I didn’t plant Carrots but got some Radishes.

  20. Hendria on June 30, 2008 6:25 am

    What a lovely salad…I will have to get Dan to get the different color carrots for next years garden. :)

  21. Rashmi on June 30, 2008 7:18 am

    How adorable are those baby carrots !
    Roasted vegetables look vibrant and delicious!

  22. skribles on June 30, 2008 9:04 am

    nice home-grown roasted veggies - nutritious and tasty looking!

  23. sapna on June 30, 2008 9:13 am

    Wow! Growing plants is a very gratifying experience. And that too vegetables where you can consume the entire plant is good. My first harvests this season were oriental radish (I know you dont like them), methi and tomatoes(early bush boy). I am waiting for the heirloom vegetables now they seem to take their time.

    What else are you growing this season? Waiting to see more pictures. Thanks.

  24. musical on June 30, 2008 11:02 am

    What a pretty platter! My dinner y’day was something similar: carrots, radishes, beets and tomatoes, diced, and enjoyed with sour yogurt, black pepper and salt :)

    You must have felt so thrilled with these pretty vegetables from your garden!

  25. sunshinemom on June 30, 2008 11:03 am

    Nice and healthy:)

  26. Kalva on June 30, 2008 8:12 pm

    Wow hat a great crop you guys have!!!

  27. swati raman on July 1, 2008 3:00 am

    wonderful crop .. first time i have seen yellow carrots/..

  28. Anjali on July 1, 2008 8:21 am

    Lovely medley!

  29. LyB on July 4, 2008 6:32 am

    Simple dishes really are the best. I can’t get over the colors of those veggies, so beautiful! I would so love to have a vegetable garden… Ah, someday. :)

    Oh, and I gave you an award; please check it out here…

  30. Kalyn on July 7, 2008 8:36 pm

    I have some of those rainbow carrots growing too, but mine are still very small. (Maybe I’m too shy about thinning them!) Looks like a delicious lunch.

  31. Preeti on August 6, 2008 11:20 pm

    It is really nice to see those rianbow colour baby carrot.
    Must say GREAT JOB.

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