There was a buy-one-get-one sale on 5 lb bags of carrots last week and it was too good a deal to pass up. To avoid falling into a food waste trap, I made it into a little creative challenge to try to use them in a bunch of different ways.
Here's what I made...
***I didn't quite eat 10 lbs of carrots in 1.5 weeks. Some of the things I made were shared with others, and I still have a couple of carrot salads in my fridge for this week.
Sweets
Mini Carrot Cakes
I posted the full recipe to these in my last blog post, but they're my own new recipe. I also made a few little cake truffles out of the scraps.
Carrot Pancakes
I followed this recipe for these. The pancakes had sort of a sweet potato pancake vibe, and I had them with honey instead of butter or syrup. They were pretty good, and a fun way to incorporate some unexpected breakfast vegetables.
Savory/Meals
Sheet Pan Veggies
I am a big fan of dumping a bunch of vegetables on a pan with some olive oil and seasoning, and then building a meal around that. I did this many times throughout the week, either with just carrots or with some other vegetables mixed in.
Carrot Peel Pesto
I can't eat most traditional pesto because of my allergies, but I love a random alternative pesto. I broke this out on a Sunday night when I was feeling a bit bleh and craving a cozy pasta night, and it was perfect.
To make it, I basically threw a bunch of stuff into the food processor: The carrot peels, 2 cloves of garlic, sunflower seeds, and some celery scraps I had in my freezer made up the base. I didn't have any parmesan so I used a bit of aged white cheddar instead.
After everything was mixed, I added some olive oil and salt and stored it all in a jar until I was ready to use it.
Salads
I'm really into glass jar salads these days. It's super easy to prep a bunch of them at once, and they're very portable (although if I'm traveling I also take another plate or bowl to dump the salad into). Also, having them all pre-made is basically the only way I can get myself to go through an entire package of greens before they go bad.
These are carrot-heavy for obvious reasons, but they also have: Avocado Ranch Dressing, black beans, canned corn, lettuce, and sunflower seeds. I made two batches (or 8 salads total) -- one on my first big day of carrot meal prep, and the other a week later.
Snacks
Carrot Peel Chips
These are super easy. I just tossed them with olive oil and added some salt, and roasted until they started to crisp up. Not easy enough though, because I did not take an after picture.
Snacking Carrots
Not much to explain here... they're just chopped carrots stored in the fridge for snacking throughout the week.
Conclusion
I have more appreciation for carrots than I ever have before, and I have to assume my eyesight is the best it has been in years. Although I'm ready for some more veggie variety again, there are definitely a few things from this week that I will be making again.
Just maybe not right away.
Thanks for reading!
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