End of September means fall, the prelude to winter…sigh. The good side if it is there are so many farmer's markets up here in Oregon, and the fruits and veggies have these amazing fall colors..
A farmer's market sets up shop every Thursday right outside my job, and I was amazed by those muti-colored carrots. The lady at the booth suggested I try them with a pesto and roasted in olive oil, and I said, "you ain't said nothing but 'a thang' "….not sure if she got my meaning though.
Anyhoo, Here is my recipe for roasted carrots in pesto……..
Carrot Prep
Colorful Organic Carrots, washed with some of the stems remaining
Pink Himalayan Salt (AVOID COMMON TABLE SALT)
Coarse Ground Organic Pepper
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Wash the carrots thoroughly and place on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with Himalayan Salt (or Celtic sea salt). Place carrots in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, shake the tray a few times to move the carrots around and place back in oven. Turn your oven to broil and broil for 5 minutes. Remove from oven.
Perfect Pesto
Note: If you want to learn to master pesto, put away the food processor and chop all your ingredients by hand. When using the food processor, the pesto comes out more like a smooth paste, put when chopping by hand, you get that rugged true Italian vibe with your pesto
** 1 large bunch of organic basil, (home grown is best) leaves only, washed and dried
** 3 medium cloves organic garlic
** one small handful of organic raw pine nuts
** A few tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
** roughly 3/4 cup Grass Fed Parmesan, loosely packed and FRESHLY GRATED (I AVOID COMMERCIAL CHEESE, If you can't find grass fed cheese, at least use USDA organic cheese)
Directions for Pesto
The technique here is: chop a bit, add some ingredients, chop some more (instead of chopping everything all at once). It takes some time, but when you are into the art of cooking and food prep, you learn to be in the moment…Start chopping the garlic along with about 1/3 of the basil leaves (invest in a quality knife set).
Once this is loosely chopped add more basil, chop some more, add the rest of the basil, chop some more. Scrape and chop, gather and chop. At this point the basil and garlic should be a very fine mince. Add about half the pine nuts, chop. Add the rest of the pine nuts, chop.
Add half of the Parmesan, chop. Add the rest of the Parmesan, and chop. In the end you want a chop so fine that you can press all the ingredients into a basil "cake" Transfer the pesto "cake" to a small bowl (not much bigger than the cake). Cover with a bit of olive oil, it doesn't take much, just a few tablespoons.
I suppose in reality, my fall and winter issues are moreso me being "shell-shocked" from so many brutal winters in Chicago, out here on the West coast, although an abundance of rain, I do avoid having to walk around in the winter looking like Dr. Zhivago on a bad day.
So now, I've learned to embrace the fall, and the inevitable winter that it leads to, and enjoy its colors, and its bounty from nature.
You know how I do it on my blog by now….anything to post on of my favorite songs.
My boy Michael Franks is gonna kick the "melodramic" title track to this post, and help me say goodbye to summer….
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~stay healthy~
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2 Responses
Those roasted carrots with pesto look fantastic – thank you for the great idea! : ) Just discovered your blog and look forward to diving in…
lmg
Thanks for your comment. Those carrots are and pesto are actually very simple to make. Hope you enjoy the blog, just trying to make health and wellness tasty!! This ain’t no tofu and rice cakes kinda website 🙂