When I was a kid, we mostly ate salads.  My dad was not a vegetable-lover, and with a few notable exceptions (artichokes and asparagus) we primarily consumed our vegetables raw.  As a result, I held a deep-seated prejudice against most forms of cooked vegetables.  I rejected red peppers. I scoffed at spinach.  I pooh-poohed parsnips.  But the worst offender in my young mind was cooked carrots. (Possibly because this is one of those kid-friendly foods people were always trying to serve to me.)  I despised and loathed cooked carrots.  They were anathema, and not a morsel of the reviled substance passed my lips.

Fast forward several years to New York City, circa 2002.  I was browsing the shelves of my favorite used bookstore in Soho (Housing Works.  Wooden bookshelves, leather chairs, a little cafe in the back, a library ladder …) when I stumbled on a copy of the classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Child, Bertholle and Beck.  Then, as now, I was lazy (let’s call it “time-pressed” – I was, after all, in law school) so I skipped through the eight-page cassoulet recipe or the 36-hour Boeuf Bourguignon, and lit upon the vegetables.  Carrots, braised in butter.  Six ingredients, two sentences.  I was sold.

I cut up my carrots, added my butter, my water, my salt, my sugar, and what resulted was a revelation.  Not nasty.  Not watery.  Not insipid.  Carrots expressing everything glorious about carrots except the crunch. I was hooked.  And that recipe, that first start, got me cooking more vegetables. which has brought me to my year of living vegetally.  Because here’s the secret about vegetables.  They are good for you.  They are full of vitamins and nutrients.  They have fiber and antioxidants, and you can feel morally superior when you eat them.  But if we prepare them correctly and season them well, they are DELICIOUS. My husband and I were fighting over this particular batch.

Continue reading Garlic Butter Glazed Carrots with Mint