Who Says Curiosity Killed the Cat?
The great thing about farmer’s market shopping is that you can grab random things and challenge yourself to find a way to figure out how to use them. Walking through a while back, I made a great discovery. Rainbow carrots! Who knew carrots came in so many different colors. I immediately grabbed white, purple, and orange ones thinking they would be really pretty all mixed up. I wasn’t wrong about that! But who knew that they all tasted so different! Mixing carrots like this really created a complex palette without having to think much about it.
“Cumin Curiosity” Carrots, Currants and Couscous
Makes 4 servings
- 2-3 white carrots, peeled and sliced into rounds
- 2-3 orange carrots, peeled and sliced into rounds
- 2-3 purple carrots, peeled and sliced into rounds
- ¼ cup Olive oil
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- Salt
- Pepper
- Parsley, chopped
- Dried currants
- 1 cup cooked couscous
- Greek yogurt
This is pretty easy as long as you are comfortable at roasting. Turn on the oven to 400˚F and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
In a large bowl, combine all of the carrots olive oil, cumin, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss them to coat the carrots. Spread the carrots out on the lined baking sheet evenly. Use a second baking sheet if needed so that the carrots aren’t overcrowded.
When the oven is heated, place the carrots in the oven and roast for about 25 minutes or until they are nice and tender and browned. Just keep an eye on them so that you don’t let them go too long and completely dry them out!
While the carrots are roasting, cook a package of plain couscous according to the instructions on the box, which are literally something like boil the water, add the couscous, turn off the heat and let the couscous sit for 5 minutes.
After you finish that, make a little yogurt dressing. Take a few spoonfuls of yogurt and whip in a little bit of cumin. Throw in some parsley if you feel like it.
When the carrots are done roasting, let them cool a bit and mix in the parsley and the dried currants (to taste). Then load up your lunchbox with a heap of couscous, as many carrots as you feel like eating and a dollop of your cumin scented yogurt dressing.
At lunchtime, eat this at room temperature, mixing the carrots and the couscous and the yogurt.