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Monday, February 16, 2015

Maple Butter Carrots from The Soup Club Cookbook

When I got The Soup Club Cookbook for review, I was pretty sure I'd be making a few soups right away. It's winter. Soup is on the table a lot.

But then I got distracted by the other recipes. I've got a zucchini lasagna recipe bookmarked for later, and there were some salad dressings calling my name. I love salad.

But then I realized I needed a vegetable for dinner. I had carrots in the refrigerator and there was a carrot recipe. So I figured I'd give it a shot.

This is the sort of recipe that, after you've made it once, you can simply eyeball the quantities and adjust to taste. It may, in fact, be too simple to warrant a recipe at all ... except that it might not be something you'd think of making unless you first saw a recipe.

The great thing about this recipe is that it's simple enough for an everyday family dinner, but you could also make it for a party or event. And the ingredients are things you might have on hand. That's always a huge plus. You can whip it together on a whim. Which, really, is what I did.

Whim ... whip it up. Done.

The recipe in the book was for 3 pounds of carrots, but I cut it back to one pound, which was really simple math. When you're deciding how much to make, consider that the carrots shrink a lot during roasting, so the volume will be much less than what you start with.

On the other hand, the carrots are sweet and rich, so you might not eat as many as if they were simply boiled.

For more about the book, check out my review on Munching on Books.

Maple Butter Carrots
Adapted from The Soup Club Cookbook 
by Courtney Allison, Tina Carr, Caroline Laskow, and Julie Peacock

3 pounds carrots, sliced into 3/4-inch disks
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon large-flake sea salt

Heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Combine the carrots with the olive oil in a large ovenproof pan - it's great if you can get them in one layer, or at least not in a big pile.

Bake, stirring every 10 minutes, until the carrots are tender and caramelized, about 40 minutes.

Bring the pan out of the oven and put it on the stovetop over low heat. Add the butter and maple syrup and stir until they begin to foam.

Continue cooking and stirring until the maple butter sauce has thickened slightly and a spatula dragged across the bottom of the pan leaves a trail.

Remove the pan from the heat and sprinkle the carrots with the salt.

Serve hot.

I received this book from the publisher at no cost to me.