Shine Supper Club: Cooked Carrots

When I was little, my mother would always ask what vegetable I wanted with dinner. Like she needed to ask - “cooked carrots” was always my response. Plain cooked carrots. Not that I minded glazed carrots (although, to this day, I'm not fond of raw carrots), but just boiled carrots with a little bit of salt. It's the simple things in life that keeps kids happy.

I'm all grown up now, and although I do still live at home, I do most of the cooking now (when I'm not working much, at least). When I found out the Shine Supper Club was doing childhood dishes for the month of May (my birthday month even!), I knew I had to do a grown up version of my favorite side dish growing up.

Lemon Pepper Boiled Carrots

Serves 4

1lb baby carrots

1tsp salt

Enough water to cover carrots

2 tblsp butter

2 tsp lemon pepper seasoning or to taste (or lemon zest and black pepper to taste)

1. Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Add carrots and boil 10-15 minutes, to desired doneness. Drain and return pot to heat.
2. Melt butter in pot with lemon pepper seasoning. Toss to coat and serve.

I served this with some white rice and Spicy Maple Mustard glazed chicken (so good I had to scrape off a little of the extra!). The glaze, if interested...

Spicy Maple Mustard Sauce

Adapted from EatingWell.com

Makes 1/4 cup

1 tblsp Maple Syrup

3 tblsp Horseradish Mustard

1/2 tsp paprika

Simply mix in a small bowl. Makes a great dip as well as a sauce for all kinds of meat!

Of course, this wasn't how I ate my carrots growing up – as I've said before, my mom is a lazy cook, and only after telling her what I'd added to the carrots did she find out about the lemon pepper seasoning I had in the pantry. Still, it was a tasty reminder of the way things were back then – and Mom even loved them too.

The simple things in life keep adults happy too.