Smoked carrots

I made this dish from Vedge: spiced little carrots with chickpea sauerkraut puree. It's a play on a reuben -- the carrots are roasted with a spice mix inspired by Montreal-style smoked meat. I smoked the roasted carrots (10 minutes, then left in the smoker box until cool). It was really nice. Unsurprisingly, the leftovers made a good sandwich.

Carrot hot dogs

I have to say I didn't have a lot of confidence that this would work. I had read about a place in LA that makes carrot hot dogs, and I found a few recipes on the web, like this one. I cooked the carrots, then marinated them for a day in a mixture of vinegar, soy sauce, water, sesame oil, garlic, mustard, paprika, pepper, coriander, nutmeg, cardamom and homemade celery salt, and then the next day cooked them on a hot pan.

And the verdict? It was simultaneously like eating a hot dog and a carrot. When I tasted one of the carrots by itself, it definitely was hot dog-esque, but in the context of the strong-flavoured condiments the carrot flavour was hard to miss. Overall, I can believe that some people have perfected this (insofar as one can perfect the carrot as hot dog). I think I didn't quite cook the carrots soft enough, and I bet the marinade could be improved. Anyway, even though they were okay, I think next time I have a hot dog craving, I'll be buying soy dogs from the supermarket.

Carrot sofrito tacos

Here you see tacos filled with carrot sofrito and cashew goat cheese with cilantro and red onion, which we ate with a tomato/tomatillo/chipotle salsa. (I used this recipe for enchiladas with a carrot sofrito.)

The leftover sofrito made for some excellent tomato soup the next day -- quickly brown chopped fennel, and then some tomato paste, then add a tin of chopped tomato, water and the sofrito. Pressure cook for 5 minutes. Puree. Salt, pepper, done.