carrot pudding

We don't eat a lot of carrots. Or at least, we didn't until I started peeling, washing, and cutting up bags of carrots into bite-sized carrot sticks. Now we go through a small bag every two weeks.

This week, I decided to take the plunge and buy a five pound bag. We'd normally never get around to eating all of that. There's no way. I would have had to make a huge batch of carrot soup -- my usual go-to meal after I notice my bag of carrots have gone limp and rooty in the bottom of the vegetable drawer.

So I got this five pound bag and diligently peeled and cut roughly about half of it into carrot sticks. I left a few of the larger carrots because I would like to make some soup eventually. It is fall afterall.

Having carrot sticks around has actually been really handy. We've not only been eating them raw, but it's made adding them into other meals super easy and super fast. Just last week, I took the handful or two that was left in the bag, blanched them, and sauted them with some maple syrup, ginger, garlic, and butter. They were so delicious, I wanted them all in a bowl just for me. Idle Husband could eat the meatloaf himself. Surely.

This week, I decided to try a recipe I found ages ago for carrot pudding. It was kind of a stretch for both of us. I'm not that keen on carrot salads involving cinnamon or raisins. There's just something wrong with that. Like sweet potatoes and marshmallows. I've never had it, but it really makes me cringe. And Idle Husband only likes to eat carrots for the crunch not the taste. Oh well. You only live once, right?

Be forewarned, this took forever to cook. I didn't have the patience to stand and stir the pot every few minutes, so I went back and forth to the kitchen every 10 minutes for an hour. Yes, an hour. It took a long time for anything to reduce and even after the hour, it wasn't really that reduced. Maybe it's because, as usual, I used powdered milk (like I do in all recipes requiring milk, unless it's intrinsically the base flavour), I don't know. The good thing? It firmed right up after sitting in the fridge for the afternoon.

I omitted the saffron threads. I'm sure they're good. Honestly, I've never had them. I've heard they're expensive, so I've never even bothered to look for them. I'm too cheap. Finally, I used my hand blender and gave this a small blend once it was done cooking. Not too much, but I started to worry my carrot shreds were a little too large. My food processor tends to produce a larger grate than a box grater. The sprinkle of pistachios (pistachi-yums, ammiright?) were good, though it didn't need it. I couldn't imagine having it with vanilla ice cream as suggested. It's perfect just the way it is.

And surprisingly delicious. Even Idle Husband liked it, and he knew it was all carrot going into it. I found it very sweet so having a smaller portion is quite enough (mine made four servings, but two of them were a little on the tiny side). And since I haven't actually had real sugar for almost a month, I totally had a sugar high, giggle-fest about an hour later. Sugar gets me like that sometimes.