Nothing like Mother Nature’s beautiful rainbow carrots; and always a little extra special when you grow them in your own healthy soil.

This year I planted organic carrot seeds in early spring and around now, mid-summer, they’re really starting to get happy and ready to harvest.  I haven’t successfully saved carrot seeds yet, so all I do each year is buy a new organic carrot seeds packet from a seed company like Natural Gardening Company or Renee’s Garden for a couple bucks.  With a little patience and TLC, the couple dollars is well worth the investment because the return on our money gives us a plethora of “food profits” (i.e. saving money at the store buying carrots:  one bunch of 5-6 organic carrots costs about the same price as a carrot seed packet with hundreds of seeds/potential carrots in it).  Non-monetarily, we get the rewarding satisfaction of growing our own integrity food for optimal health, vitality & performance (investment in our body!).

This particular harvest this year has been one of my best.  In the past I’ve grown little stumps (here’s an example), but each year I’m dialing in my growing skills and I’ve had much better luck growing bigger, beautiful carrots.  Just look at this picture of this years harvest. Frame-worthy, no?

With carrots whether I buy them or grow them, they’re great for snacking, making raw carrot salads or to turn into a veggie noodles dish, but they’re also a great root vegg to roast in the oven.

These particular rainbow carrots I roasted in a quick glaze I threw together and they turned out great… definitely give this one a try next time you’re making a main meal and need a tasty side, or if you just want something sweet like candy to snack on (parents, try these for your kids if they have a hard time eating veggies… they truly are sweet!).

These roasted carrots are recipe-friendly:

• paleo
• vegetarian/vegan
• ReBoot Protocol Week 1+
• gluten-free/grain-free
• dairy-free

Carrot tops in raised bed.  Roughly 3′ x 2′ space.

Click here to Pin for later! 

INGREDIENTS

30-35 carrots*

2 tablespoon Coconut Aminos Garlic Sauce

2 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1/2 tablespoon dijon-style mustard

Optional:  add a small handful of chopped greenage like parsley or cilantro on the carrots when serving

*KITCHEN NOTES

1.  Carrots:  try and find the younger, smaller carrots like pictured.  They’re sweeter and more tender than a huge, fully grown carrot and especially better than the conventionally (non-organic) grown gigantic ones we can find at the super market.

METHOD

1.  Set your oven to 400 F.

2.  Give your carrots a good wash & scrub and remove the stems.  Place on a towel to let dry off.

Optional:  I used my potato peeler to shave the outer skin of the carrots but you can skip this if you want (I add the shaved skins to my composter), just make sure they’re scrubbed well and no dirt, etc.

3.  Add the garlic sauce, olive oil, maple syrup and mustard to a blender or whisk it together well in a bowl.

4.  Spread the carrots out on a baking tray and pour the sauce all over them.   I just take my hands and rub them all around so they’re nice and coated, finally arranging them so they’re ready for the oven.

5.  Add tray to oven for 30-35 minutes.   We all like different carrot textures, so I’ve found with my oven, that’s the “sweet spot” time-range where the carrots get nice roast color on outside and not too cooked on the inside.  The outer area has a soft bite and the inside still has soft crunch.  So at that 30 minute mark, carefully remove the tray and check a carrot by poking it with a fork and see if it’s the right texture you’re looking for (you can even check around 25 minutes if you want).

Pre-oven roasted with garlic maple glaze added

Post-roasted with chopped garden parsley 

Plated deliciousness

Click here to Pin for later!

Questions or comments about this post?  Let me know below!