Lemon-Honey Glazed Carrots

Maybe it’s the change of season, or the impulse to clean out my closet, or the recent daylight savings clock setting business that compelled me to sit down to a simple dinner of the following: toast with a dollop of creamy ricotta cheese, slices of velvety avocado and a sprinkling of salt served alongside a bowl of  simple honey glazed carrots brightened with a squeeze of lemon.

I mean, who am I these days?

Mindfulness

I blame it on mindfulness. It’s a new trick* I’ve picked up over the last several months. Instead of floating around, trance-like, worrying about what happened yesterday or biting my nails about what might be lurking around the corner in the future, I’ve adopted a “be here now” mentality. These days I focus on the moment and what’s right in front of me. Or, I should say, I start every day with the intention to embrace mindfulness. Sometimes I slip into “floaty” mode, but now that I get what mindfulness is it’s easier to snap out of those la-la land states back into the present moment.

And it’s this mindfulness I’ve adopted over the last several months that’s leading to positive changes in my life. So, I guess it’s not the time change, or the massive closet clean-out, or the seasonal transition that led to my “so-not-like-me” dinner of avocado toast and lemon-honey glazed carrots. Because, before I started practicing mindfulness, cooking dinner was often done in a haze of habitualness. It’s how we get stuck in dinner ruts. For me, ruts include a lot of pasta. And cheese. And take-out. Carrots? They, like other good-for-me ingredients, don’t often show up in the ruts.

And so it was a week ago yesterday that I arrived home hungry, ready to eat, and high-risk for a trip to hazy la-la land. So I stopped, opened the fridge and, instead of taking a peek and ordering pizza, I took a moment to examine the ingredients piled on the shelves and shoved into the drawers. A sack of carrots, leftover from a chicken noodle soup recipe, caught my attention and triggered a memory of glazed carrots and how much I love them. Had I not stopped and considered the carrots they most likely would have withered away until fridge clean-out day. And we all know where the stuff goes on fridge clean out day.

So I made lemon-honey glazed carrots.

*Calling mindfulness a “trick” is a little tongue in cheek. It really has been life-changing for me and a practice I continue to learn more about and apply in my daily life. Maybe you’re interested in learning more, too? Here are some books about mindfulness and general spiritual well-being I’ve found helpful:

Present Over Perfect
Beyond Your Shadows of a Doubt
How to Survive a Shipwreck
The Shack

Lemon-Honey Glazed Carrots

• Whether it’s chicken, pork chops, grilled steak, turkey, or ham these glazed carrots are like the little black dress of side dishes: they pretty much go with anything, including avocado toast. They’re lightly sweetened and speckled with some Herbes de Provence, although dried oregano, thyme, or rosemary would work well. Check your spice cabinet – chances are you already have something that will work. Use what you got.
• Quick! Easy! Low-Maintenance! These are just a few superlatives to describe these carrots because they seriously take maybe 20 minutes start to finish. Making them for a holiday meal? While the turkey/ham/whatever meaty main dish you’re making is resting make the carrots. The really are that fast and easy.
• The first time I made these, I sliced two medium-sized carrots on an angle into approximately 2 inch pieces. It was more than enough for one person. So, the second time around I sliced up six medium-sized ones, which easily serves four.
• While they are cooking two things happen. First, placing a lid over the top allows the carrots to steam, but at the same time they get a nice caramelization from the bottom of the pan. Keep an eye on them, give them a stir every so often, and monitor the heat to prevent burning. Be in the moment with your carrots.
• And, as a side note, new recipe feature: nutritional data! Is this something we’re interested in knowing? How many calories recipes have? It’s something I’ve wrestled with for a long time – should I include it, should I not? Well, I have a funny feeling that maybe that’s helpful info for you all, so from here I’ll include it on every recipe. I use a paid tool called Nutrifox to calculate the nutritional info – a tool I know and trust, but please keep in mind that they are estimates. I’m not a nutritionist, or doctor, or food scientist. I’m just a girl who likes to cook and share helpful information.

More Vegetable Side Dishes

• Roasted Radishes with Red Onion
• Roasted Parmesan Potatoes
• Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges

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