Playing catchup....

I lost steam on the carrot stuff and haven't wanted to post pics/recipes. I do however have some super tasty stuff that I do want to post so we're playing catchup today. I'll post a pic, short summary, and recipe. Short and sweet. That way tomorrow I can start with the good stuff.

From top to bottom and left to right: CarrotApple bread, Carrot Bars, Carrot cupcakes, more carrot bars.

The bread was awesome. What you see here is recipes doubled. My friend and I split everything. We each took 1.5 loaves of the bread. It was gone within a day or two. The carrot bars were good though we expected something more crunchy/bar like. These were soft. Definitely cookie like. The cupcakes...not sure what happened to those. We varied the recipe a bit since we didn't have orange marmelade. We juiced an orange and used the juice and pulp as our sub. They were super moist and tasty. We had so much batter left over we used it for a bundt cake.

We did make our own icing. I don't have the recipe link anymore but it's your basic cream cheese one....cream cheese, vanilla, powdered sugar, and butter. I actually had to make a second batch due to the bundt cake.

(Blogger suddenly isn't wanting to cooperate with me on hyperlinks. From here on out I'll just post the full link.)

This recipe ROCKS! http://www.recipezaar.com/KFC-Coleslaw-33489 It's for KFC coleslaw. I used red cabbage and instead of buttermilk (I had none) I made some (milk and vinegar). It tasted exactly like the stuff from KFC! It was devoured. We had it when we had some people over for lunch. It didn't last long.

This is just a standard go to at our house. Noodles with some veggies. I sauteed carrots, radishes, and asparagus in some EVOO. Add salt, pepper, and oregano and put some on top of your noodles. Super tasty but super simple and fast. Great way to use up random tidbits.

MMmm: Somethin' saucy

This was what I made with the leftover lemon sauce. Noodles, tomatos, carrots (of course), celery. Cook everything up (sauteed the veggies) and then mixed in the remaining sauce. Topped it with a bit of parmesean cheese and a slice of buttered bread.

It wasn't too shabby. It was quick and easy and everyone ate it which is what I was going for. :) There were leftovers of it that I stuck in a casserole dish and baked the next day. Much better as a hot dish than cold. It was ok. I'm sure I'll make it again but it wasn't something I would jump to make. It was just sorta....meh. The lemon sauce is what made it.

MMMmmm: Veggie meatloaf and a lemon sauce

This was a pretty simple and effective recipe. Clicky!Clicky! I had read a few recipes that day and one used a ton of mock meat. For extra bulk I did add some Morning Star crumbles (also to replace the oats since I didn't have any) to my lentil mix. My tomato sauce ratio was a bit off so the loaf was a bit more crumbly than I would have liked.

This is almost a recipe I would use a lot. I'm rather particular about meatloaf and have yet to find the perfect one. As a vegetarian that's going to be a bit harder. ;) Since I said this was going to be about carrots take a closer look. Hard to see but there are carrots in this. It added a bit of extra crunch to your bite which was nice. It didn't really add any flavor. It did add a nice punch of color as well. :)

This was my favorite part. I had sauteed asparagus earlier and after pulling the meatloaf out decided I wanted a bit more oomph to it. I googled lemon sauce recipes super fast and found one I liked and had all the ingredients for. Clicky!Clicky! I did make some alterations...due to the insanely picky eaters here I nixed the spice. I'm not sure it would be any better with it though. This sauce seriously rocks! I also didn't have any paprika or basil. I just used a whole lot of salt and pepper and oregano. :) I also used about 1.5 lemons for the juice. I don't know if I just had small lemons or they were older or what but it was definitely needed. Once it was done (and no you cannot taste the garlic) I took a couple spoonfuls and stirred it into my asparagus. I had enough left over that the following day I made a stir fry type meal and used the rest of it to season it up (and since there were carrots I'll blog it :) ). Since there was no hot sauce in it this is a nice all around sauce. I used it on some bread the next day and it was perfect. I'm seriously in love with this stuff!

A carrot a day...

is going to be the theme here for a couple days. Not because I love carrots or anything but because I just used a ton. In a matter of 2 or 3 days. :) First up is more of a "processing of carrots".

When I went to get an orange the other day I noticed the carrots mom had given me were needing to be used. I pulled them out, and after a very discouraging trip to the store to get baggies, got busy. First I got them soaking. That is two grocery bags worth of carrots. I did a visual check and tossed any right away that needed to be.

Then I got to dicing into medallions. I can't remember if I peeled this batch or not (there has been a lot of carrot handling in the last 2ish days). I blanched them and stuck them in the bag and in the freezer.

Next up was chopping them. By this point my fingers were orange, children were driving me crazy, and I was burnt out on carrots. I stuck chunks of carrot in my blender and let it do the work. Again blanched and frozen. I'm not happy about the large scale storage but part of my discouraging store trip included coming home with no baggies. The ones chopped in my blender will be used for soups and stir fry and baking. I don't think I'll need to buy any more carrots for awhile!

Up next: Vegetarian (well duh) meatloaf with a lemon sauce (not on the meatloaf...), carrot and apple bread, carrot cupcakes (and subsequent bundt cake), carrot bars, and a peach dessert!

Oh how funny....without intending too my last post here was a carrot one too! By the time I'm done you'll have plenty to do with carrots. You'll likely never want to see them again too. :)