Roasted Carrots with Seeds
Updated: Nov 19, 2020
As a kid I had my own way of dealing with foods I didn’t like. I would try most anything once and if I decided that a particular food should be on my dislike list, then I ate it first. This proved to be a bad strategy when I visited my great aunt Lorene. She would invite us over to eat and I knew what we’d be having: fried chicken! She made the best fried chicken in all the land; the only problem was that I had to get past her butter-beans in order to get to that crispy, juicy chicken. My mom would fix my plate and I’d stare down at those detestable beans, calculate the number of bites I needed and shove them down. This delighted my aunt, because she thought it was a sign of my love for them. She’d say to my mom in her deep southern drawl, “Oh, Lyn, look, she just luvs those butter-beans!” and then pile more on my plate.
I suffered through many a butter-bean to get to her fried chicken, but there was one food that I would not eat under any circumstances: a cooked carrot. I would rather not eat than have to bite into those limp orange circles on my plate. I’ve got no problem with them raw, but cooked? No. I know that carrots have many health benefits and I’ve reluctantly tried to cook them a few times since becoming an adult; each time it’s been a failure, until a couple of months ago when I got a new cookbook. I was flipping through Melissa Joulwan’s Well Fed Weeknights and I saw a beautiful picture of some carrot sticks lying next to some meatballs in a cute little basket and I marked that page as a maybe. A couple of weeks later I was meal planning and got to thinking about those carrots. I decided to give it a go and I loved them! My husband Ben said, “These are good; can we have them again?” The kids were not thrilled about them, so I decided to wait a couple of weeks and then try them again, but change the recipe a bit. The second time, everyone loved them. So, for all of you out there that gag at the thought of eating a cooked carrot, maybe this’ll change your mind!
This recipe is courtesy of Melissa Joulwan, author of the best-selling Well Fed cookbook series, including Well Fed Weeknights: Complete Paleo Meals in 45 Minutes Or Less—and the blog MelJoulwan.com where she writes about her triumphs and failures in the kitchen, in the gym, and in life."
Roasted Carrots with Seeds
Ingredients:
1½ pounds carrots (about 10-12)
4 teaspoons avocado oil
1½ teaspoons poppy seeds
1½ teaspoons sesame seeds
1 tsp sea salt
¼ tsp pepper
4-6 garlic cloves, crushed
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
Cut carrots into strips about ¼ inch thick and put them into a large bowl.
In a separate small bowl, add all the other ingredients including the crushed garlic and stir to combine.
Using a spatula, scrape the seeds mixture onto the carrots and toss until all the carrots are covered.
Place the carrots and any seasoning left in the bowl in a 9 x 13 glass baking dish and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes.
The carrots are done when a fork will pierce the skin of the carrot, but not go all the way through.