My Bumper Crop of Carrots

My Bumper Crop of Carrots originally published on Food and Fond Memories on May 5, 2011 by sandyaxelrod 0 Comments (Edit)

A carrot growing in another carrot sitting on a butcher block

Conjoined twin carrots!

Freshly Picked Carrots

Okay, so as you can see in the picture my “bumper crop” of carrots was barely enough for a side dish. I guess that’s all I should have expected since I grew them in a pot on my patio. You’ve heard the saying short but sweet? I know it applies to speeches but I am going to use it here for my carrots. They really were little like the so called baby carrots you buy in a bag at the grocery store but packed with a honey sweetness that you can only get when the carrots are eaten when pulled fresh from the soil. There were even a few that were so teeny tiny that they were nearly impossible to scrape clean but I needed every morsel to come close to enough for a side to go with my Spanish spice rubbed chicken. I decided to serve the carrots glazed with honey, dark brown sugar, ground ginger, a splash of vermouth (I didn’t have any white wine) and a pinch of salt and pepper. I merely cleaned the carrots, put them in a small saucier with the glaze mixture and cooked them over medium heat until the glaze got syrupy and the carrots were tender. This didn’t take too long because they were so small. The carrots were so delicious that Steve and I really wished we had double the portion. Next time I plant carrots I’ll place the seeds directly in the soil instead of using the seed starter kit that I used. I think that the little mesh containers stunted the carrots growth because it made it too difficult for them to break through the mesh. But I could be wrong because, as you can see in one of my photos, I did have one carrot actually grow right through another carrot. It was sort of like conjoined twins joined at the chest. I am actually planning to make the exact same meal for dinner tonight but I’ll be using those bagged carrots with the Spanish spice rubbed chicken for Cinco de Mayo since we gobbled up my entire bumper crop of carrots last week.