Honey Garlic Roasted Carrots

I hate raw carrots.  Really.  And one of my strongest childhood memories is of my grandparents making carrot juice and their whole house smelling like carrots.  I don't like them in salads, pick them off of pad thai, can't stand coleslaw at all, refuse them heartily even with a dip or hummus or peanut butter.  There's gotta be a Dr. Seuss story in here.  I can tolerate them cooked in some things (like they're ok sometimes (if small and not mushy or hard) in soup, and I love nut-free (and that's a mission critical part) carrot cake...) but raw: just.can't.stand them.  And that goes for other orange vegetables too -- sweet potatoes, peppers, squash, pumpkin.  Some of the fruits are great....peaches, apricots, mangos, those little yellow orangey tomatoes.  Persimmon & papaya if I have to.  But in order to eat the orange vegetable category I have to track down recipes that are truly spectacular.

This one is.

I was gonna make them for dinner on Tuesday but decided against it for some reason.  However, I'd already made the glaze that morning so I just prepped the carrots, tossed the glaze, and dropped it all in a plastic dish with a lid & left them on the counter for 2 days.  Cooked them for lunch today.  Perfection. 

Moral of the story:  put this dish together when you have a few minutes and just leave it on your countertop to cook sometime that week.  You'll have a veggie side with no work beyond turning on your oven.  I'm pretty sure they'd be good as leftovers.  Also pretty sure you could do this with turnips or parsnips.  If you topped it with a few chopped pecans you'd have a holiday side dish.  Or simply extra protein.  If you like pecans.  Which I don't.  Unless it's pecan pie or they've been sugared first.  :)  So I won't do that, but you could.

You can see it at the link here but the basics are below.  It's really, really easy and if I like it I'm pretty sure you and even your kids will.

Stir together in a bowl:

• 1/4 c apricot or peach preserves/jam
• 2 T honey
• 2 T olive oil
• 1 T butter, melted
• 1 t balsamic vinegar
• 1 t garlic powder
• 1/4 t ground mustard (if you don't have it don't bother buying it)
• 1/4 t thyme leaves
• 1/8 t ground cumin
• 3/4 t salt
• 1/8 t pepper

Then toss in 2 lbs carrots, peeled & ends chopped off, quartered the long way so they look like carrot sticks.  If you don't wanna peel carrots just use those little baby carrots.  More expensive but zero prep.

Cover a baking sheet with foil & lightly coat it with cooking spray.  The reason for the foil is simply that the glaze can blacken & burn and the clean up is a heck of a lot easier with foil.

Spread carrots in 1 layer on the pan with the sauce all over them.  Bake 30 minutes at 375 degrees.  Give them a little toss around 15 minutes.  Poke with a fork to check tenderness.  Garnish with fresh parsley.