The wild carrot plant.  A wild carrot has to be eaten young or it gets too woody, and apparently the leaves can cause hypersensitivity to ultra violet light, as giant hogweed does.  The wild carrot is easily mistaken for hemlock - so all in all, not a good plant for foraging.
The wild carrot plant. A wild carrot has to be eaten young or it gets too woody, and apparently the leaves can cause hypersensitivity to ultra violet light, as giant hogweed does. The wild carrot is easily mistaken for hemlock – so all in all, not a good plant for foraging.  That said, the carrot is native to the UK and Europe, so we will have been eating these things for ages.
  • Bunch of carrots, lightly scrubbed and halved
  • Olive oil
  • Fresh herbs: parsley, sage, bit of rosemary, thyme – all to none.
  • Celtic sea salt and black pepper.

Serves 2-4.

  1. Heat oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6
  2. Pour some olive oil into a large roasting tin – enough to give a reasonable covering – and put in the oven to heat up.
  3. After the oil has warmed up, take the pan out and add the carrots.
  4. Salt the carrots and stir them about to coat them in the oil.
  5. Roast until tender, 20 – 30 mins.
  6. Taste them and add more salt if needed, then add the pepper and herbs and mix well.
  7. Serve.

These days carrots come in purple and yellow as well as orange.  The purple ones especially are bound to increase the suspicions of the children.  To get a good mix of antioxidants, we are told to eat a rainbow, which means eat different coloured vegetables with each meal.  Purple carrots are a normal carrotty orange in the middle, so big bang for buck there – 2 colours in one vegetable.  All the different carrots taste nice.  If the carrots have gone a bit bendy, put them, pointy side down, in a jar of water in the fridge and they should stiffen up most satisfyingly.

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