carrots – Chocolate 'N Children

July 24, 2015July 23, 2015

Food Friday – Glazed Carrots

I’m not personally a big fan of glazed carrots. I like mine raw with ranch, in a salad, or just eaten as a giant carrot stick. But my kids and husband prefer them glazed. Making glazed carrots is super easy, and since I’m on a roll on the blog with easy vegetables I’ll share another favorite recipe.

Glazed carrots

Carrots – sliced – as many as you want to eat, I do about 1/2 lb for my family of 5
1/2 Cup Water
3Tbsp Brown Sugar

Place sliced carrots in pan, add water and brown sugar and stir. Bring to a boil. Turn down and simmer – stirring frequently -about 30 minutes or until most of the water has cooked off and only a glaze is left.

For more easy vegetable recipes check out my:

Sauteed Squash

Green Beans

And my Crockpot Vegetable Soup

July 23, 2015July 23, 2015

CSA – Week 10

This week’s csa box has some super tasty vegetables!

Red onions again. These are so delicious!

Eggplant. I’m not very good at cooking with this vegetable, but I love the color of it.

Carrots. Lots of little carrots, this was probably the last of them for a while.

Basil, I have plenty in my freezer already I’m thinking that I’ll try dehydrating some and see how they turn out.

I’m excited about corn. We love corn and haven’t had it in our box yet.

Cucumbers. I’m thinking I’ll make more pickles!

Cherry tomatoes. They’re so yummy!

July 3, 2015July 3, 2015

Food Friday – Crockpot Vegetable Soup

I’ve been on a soup/stew kick this past couple of weeks. Mainly because we’re super busy and it’s easy to toss everything in the crockpot before heading out the door for the day. And then supper is ready when I get home!

For this vegetable soup, you can toss in just about any vegetable if you don’t like the veggies I used.

Crockpot Vegetable Soup

2 Large Tomatoes – cut in chunks
Handfull Chopped Cauliflower
4 Sliced carrots
1 Beet peeled and grated
3 Radishes sliced (I’ve noticed the spicier the raw radish, the sweeter it is cooked)
1 Cup chopped greens (I used swiss chard)
2 Cups chicken broth or chicken soup base
1 Cup cooked meat (I had some leftover hamburger and pork chops that I cut up and put in)

Put all ingredients in the crockpot. Add extra water to full cover vegetables if needed. Cook on low 6 to 8 hours.

June 18, 2015June 16, 2015

CSA – Week 5

My girls are so excited about these carrots. They love carrots, and had carrots a few weeks ago so this week they were asking for them again. They’re so happy to have more carrots.

I can’t say I’m happy to see more beets. I’ve already pickled two bunches. I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do with this bunch.

Swiss chard. I remember my mom making this accidentally once when I was a kid thinking it was kale. It’s not kale, and it didn’t taste good. So I’m a little afraid of it, but I’m sure I’ll find something I can make with it.

Basil, luckily I have ideas for using this since I’m just now finishing off my last batch. In fact, tomorrow I’ll have two recipes for you with basil.

More tomatoes. These are so yummy! And I’m eating through them so quickly, I’m always happy to have more tomatoes.

And lettuce, we love salads at my house, so that’s what this gets used for. There’s also a lovely red pepper I forgot to take a picture of – and since I ate it before I realized that I didn’t have a picture, there’s no picture. It was very tasty.

May 28, 2015May 21, 2015

CSA Week 2

Here’s what came in my second CSA box. Recipes for some of these items will be on the blog tomorrow!

Basil – I’m seeing lots of italian foods in my future! Did you know, basil is a spice that does better on the counter instead of the fridge. Just put it in a jar of water kind of like you would a flower, cover it lightly, and leave it out. It’ll keep longer. Not the most beautiful flower but it really does smell so good!

Kale, I really love kale. It’s one of my favorite greens. Plus I have a great recipe! (once again, come back tomorrow!)

Lettuce, luckily we love salads around here. This is such a big head! We’ve had a great spring for lettuce growing and it really shows.

More green onions, we got green onions last week as well. Apparently, it’s been a great spring for them. We don’t eat a lot of green onions so I’m struggling with what to do with them. I don’t mind them as toppings for salads, soups, tacos, etc. But no one else likes them, so I have to find a way to hide them when I cook with them. Check back tomorrow and see what I came up with.

More strawberries, they didn’t last long. We ate them up within hours of getting them home. They’re so sweet and juicy!

One green pepper. It’s pretty large, and looks delicious!

Carrots, my 6yr old has been begging to make some carrot soup. So we did, come back tomorrow and see how it turned out!

May 22, 2015May 21, 2015

Food Friday – First CSA Box Results

My first CSA box was full of some great stuff. Take a look at all the tasty treats here!

What did I do with all of this? Well, for starters I had fun! I love trying new recipes and experimenting in the kitchen. Here’s what I came up with.

Roasted Radishes

Thinly slice your radishes and spread them on a cookie sheet. Top with a bit of butter, salt, and pepper, and bake in the oven at 300 for about 30 minutes. Taking them out and stirring every 10 minutes.

Don’t these look delicious? I’m not a big fan of radishes, but these had a great flavor and after being baked were still packed with flavor but were not spicy like raw radishes are.

Strawberry Shortcakes

Because who can resist a strawberry dessert with strawberries so sweet they don’t need sugar!

I purchased the cake from the store.

The strawberries are easy, cut the tops off, slice, and put them on top of the cake.

I put my strawberry tops in a tupperware in the freezer for using in smoothies later.

For the whipped cream, it’s so easy! 1 cup of whipping cream, 1 Tablespoon sugar, beat with an electric mixer until it’s as thick as you want it. I like mine pretty thick. Place on top and enjoy!

Pesto

I had what I think were carrot tops, so I made some pesto to top my steamed carrots and broccoli with.

I liked the pesto on my carrots but not on my broccoli. I also tried it on corn chips and that was not good at all. So stick with using this on carrots.

4 Cups carrot tops (cut off the stems and use mostly just the leafy parts)
1 Clove garlic
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp oil
2 tsp lemon juice

Place all the ingredients in a blender and blend, scraping down sides as needed, until the pesto is finely chopped and well combined. Serve with roasted or steamed carrots.