Roasted Rainbow Carrots

Initially, I wasn’t going to post a recipe this week while I catch-up on reshooting and updating recipes from the archive, but then my husband handed me a handful of these gorgeous rainbow carrots we planted in the spring and I just had to do something with them.

Growing up with a parent in the agriculture business meant as a child I despised most vegetables, particularly broccoli, cauliflower and spinach—but I loved carrots. One of my best friend’s father owned a carrot business called Cream of the Crop and I always looked forward to a delivery of carrots! After tragedy struck and the business was sold, I became somewhat deprived when it came to a healthy supply of carrots.

Flash-forward to this spring when my husband and I built an awesome raised garden bed and we were trying to decide which seeds to plant. Before I knew what I was doing, I had a packet of rainbow carrots in my hand with the sole intention of growing awesomely crooked and misshapen carrots. Just look at how awesome these are! I don’t know about you, but if I could regularly buy rainbow carrots that looked like these at my local farmer’s market I’d be buying them on the daily.

After cleaning them off, I decided to take some photo’s of these babies on a new backboard my husband made for me. Basically I wanted to see if the background was too dark but I LOVE how it turned out. I’m naturally drawn to dark and moody things, such as this background. Anyway, after spending a half an hour or so photographing this bunch of carrots, I decided to roast them using my latest go-to spice mixture. It reminds me so much of fall cooking and since I am currently enduring a horrific heatwave (seriously, it’s been in the high 90’s for the past week!), I am daydreaming about cooler temperatures.

The recipe itself couldn’t be any easier: combine all the spices in a bowl with some melted butter, brush the spice mixer over the carrots and pop them in the oven and voila!

This is one of those recipes that’s so great to add to your arsenal because of it’s simplicity and quickness. There’s no complicated steps or spices that you wouldn’t normally have in your spice cabinet. If you plan to make these roasted spice rainbow carrots for Thanksgiving, you can pop them into the oven while your turkey is resting and you’re making your gravy.

The combination of cinnamon and brown sugar is a no-brainer, but add some coriander, ginger and cumin and you’re in for a truly comforting array of spices and flavors. I really love all the flavors in a creamy carrot (or pumpkin) soup.

So tell me, what fall recipes are you already craving alongside of these yummy roasted rainbow carrots?