Roasted Carrots with Polenta and Anasazi Beans

A road trip from Durango to Moab, down in the Four-Corners area of southern Utah and Colorado, takes you through the “don’t blink” town of Dove Creek. If you don’t blink, on the north side of the road you will pass the Adobe Milling store that sells local pinto beans and the more gourmet Anasazi beans, named for the ancient Pueblo culture that lived in this area. Dove Creek Colorado calls itself the “Pinto Bean Capital of the World”, but I came away with a bag of Anasazi beans from the store. Paired with polenta and Roasted Carrots—well, tonight will be our third meal of the same.

I make a 1 cup recipe of polenta beforehand and let it cool in a 9 x 13” dish. Robbie cuts the cold polenta into squares and into the oven it goes—along with the carrots roasting to perfect golden tenderness.

ancho and guajillo chiles

I followed my basic recipe for pot beans, adding a couple of chiles, because they were sitting in a bowl on the kitchen counter asking to be used. The same with my go-to polenta recipe—easily cooked in the microwave. The roasted carrots are “simplicity itself”, to quote Anna Thomas, whose recipe I followed. In her cookbook, The New Vegetarian Epicure, Ms. Thomas suggests a meal of roasted vegetables and polenta. She includes roasted whole garlic and sautéed greens along with the roasted carrots and other surprises. I highly recommend the cookbook.

The vegetable broth and lemon juice add bling to the carrots. Since I keep a jar of Rapunzel powdered vegetable broth in the pantry, I mixed one teaspoon of powder with 2 tablespoons of hot water.

Roasted Carrots

1 pound small carrots

About1 tablespoon olive oil

Real Salt

2 tablespoons vegetable broth

1 ½ teaspoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice.

Preheat the oven to 400° F. Trim the carrots and scrub them well. If the carrots are not small, cut them into stick no more than ½ inch at their thickest point.

Put the carrots in a shallow baking pan and drizzle the olive oil over them Sprinkle lightly with salt. Toss them around so the oil and salt are evenly distributed. Mix the broth and lemon juice together and sprinkle over the carrots.

Roast the carrots about 45 minutes, moving them around every 20 minutes or so. The broth will evaporate and the carrots will become golden. If they are turning too dark before they are tender, add a wee bit more broth, but not so much that there will be liquid in the pan when the carrots are done.

Makes 4 to 5 servings.

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Yogurt Cheese with Garlic and Parsley

Yogurt cheese is easy to make—it just takes preparing ahead—18 to 24 hours. So if you want yogurt cheese for tomorrow—make it today, if you want yogurt cheese for today—too late, too bad. This recipe uses parsley, because that is in our box this week. If you have that freezer stash of basil pesto, it is perfect for flavoring yogurt cheese; mix in 1/4 cup of pesto in place of the garlic and parsley. You can use other herbs too—cilantro, basil, dill—depending on what you have or prefer.

In the era when many were cooking their way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volumes One and Two, I was throwing dinner parties and cooking out of Anna Thomas’ Vegetarian Epicure, Books I and II.  Know that it’s true when I say that Anna’s recipes were just as time-consuming and calorific as Julia’s. In 1996, Anna published a new cookbook, with dinner-party ideas and recipes of a lighter fare—this Yogurt Cheese comes from her The New Vegetarian Epicure.

1 quart high-quality plain non-fat yogurt (no starch or gums added)

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley

1/8 teaspoon Real Salt, to taste

Freshly ground black pepper

Line a large sieve of colander with a triple thickness of damp cheesecloth, Dump the yogurt onto the cheesecloth and place the sieve or colander over a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate about 18-20 hours. Check under the sieve, especially in the first hours, and drink or throw away (sic) the whey that has drained into the bowl.

Turn the thickened yogurt cheese into a bowl and mix in the garlic and parsley, or pesto, as well as salt and pepper, to your taste. If you have the time, refrigerate for a few hours before serving, letting the flavors meld.

Serve with crackers or crostini, as an appetizer, or with baked Ranui Charlotte potatoes for dinner.

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