Simple Cooked Carrots

From the time my girls were little babies, I’ve always tried to give them at least one serving of an orange veggie, whether it be carrots, squash or even sweet potatoes. That was pretty easy back then when everything came pureed in a jar. But as they got older, everything but carrots fell to the wayside, so carrots made a daily appearance on their plates.

I try to vary it up and keep things interesting. Raw baby carrots or cut up sticks (aka “crunchy farmer carrots” because they often came from our CSA) were faves. Even Gerber’s diced cooked carrots in those little jars aka “baby carrots” worked. I used “baby carrots” as long as I could, but they got really hard to find. So then I switched to canned Del Monte cooked carrots. They liked them but the high sodium content always made me a little nervous. I even tried to make my own version of the canned-like carrots, but they didn’t love them. I also tried steaming, sauteing, caramelizing but none were keepers, so I kept working on it.

This is my latest attempt and much to my delight a successful one – the girls LIKED it! They ate them all up without being told once to take another bite. After their first trying them, Big Sis asked me, “What kind of carrots are these? They’re really good!” Yay! Success! Granted, they still get the canned version sometimes, like when I just don’t have the time and/or the carrots on hand, but I figure it’s better than nothing?

As you can see below, I used my beloved Vidalia Onion Chopper because the carrots I had were kind of big. If they were smaller, I would’ve just hand dice them. It always reminds me of when the girls were young, like Big Sis was 3 or so. Whenever I’d start to use it (it’s loud), Little Sis would come running up to me to see what I was doing. Then she’d see and say, “Oh, the Vidalia Onion Chopper?” and run back. She knew this by name because she’d see it in tv commercials. So cute and funny!

Ideally, there would be a size in between. This time I opted to use the smaller cut but I think I’m gonna stick to the larger size next time, because these were kind of small. The girls want to be able to poke them with a fork, not scoop them with a spoon. Plus, that way I could actually put them on the same plate as their dinner instead of a separate bowl for easier scooping.

Print

Cooked Carrots

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Keyword veggies

Ingredients

• 1 cup diced carrots
• 1/4 – 1/2 tsp salt updated 3.14.13
• about 2 cups water
• 1/2 tsp butter or to taste

Instructions

1. Add water, carrots and salt to pan.
2. Boil for about 10 mins on med-high heat.
3. Reduce to a simmer for another 10-15 mins or until tender.
4. Drain carrots, return to pan and add butter and mix until butter is melted and evenly distributed.

Something I do to make things easier is to wash/peel/cut/dice up a bunch of carrots at once and just cook a couple days worth at a time. I put raw sticks and even diced carrots in a glass Pyrex container and leave them in fridge until ready for consumption/use. They keep fresh for a suprisingly long time!

As you can see, today is carrot peeling/cutting/dicing day! Shown here is about 3 lbs of organic carrots. May the peeling begin.

There. This should last me at least a couple weeks. I diced the carrots the other day, so in total you are looking at about 4 lbs of carrots, ready to be nibbled, chopped, cooked and eaten!

That’s it! Hope you and your kiddies enjoy them too!

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Christine, aka happyvballgirl : )

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