Thursday, October 29, 2009

Purple Carrots & Fairy Smoke

Considering this blog has been around for a week now, I thought it would be a good time to explain the seemingly random title. Although it may appear otherwise, I actually put some thought into it. After the initial disappointment of discovering that Inquisitive Mind had already been used multiple times, I picked myself up and with the help of my video game absorbed husband, opted to use two of my favorite things: Purple Carrots & Fairy Smoke. (I never said the thought process was a long one.)


Purple Carrots or Purple haze is a variety of carrot that is both esthetically pleasing and enjoyable to eat. I discovered them while working as a camp counselor for the Youth Gardens (or Jardins Jeunes) program of the Montreal Botanical Gardens. This amazing program teaches kids from the age of 6 to 15 how to grow their own food by giving them a piece of land and organic vegetables. Not to mention brilliant counsellors and a loads of vegetables for only 15$/summer. One of the vegetables they grow is purple carrots. They're a hit with the kids (and everybody else I might add). You can't find them everywhere, I had never seen them in a store before until I read a post by Supayana who found them in a Montreal store. I got really excited.

These carrots have a beautiful purple exterior that extends to the core which is orange, this coloration makes them a beautiful addition to any meal. I find them slightly sweeter and softer than the traditional orange variety making them my absolute favorite snack. These carrots may be news to me but they have been cultivated in Afghanistan and other eastern countries for hundreds if not thousands of years. This is me, just spreading the love. Have you eaten purple carrots? Let me know what you think and I'd love to try any cool purple recipes you've discovered.

Take care!

11 comments:

  1. oooh, I wish I had to grow them back when I was attending the camp :( I'll try to find seeds for next summer.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I didn't realize that carrots came in so many colors until I stumbled upon the World Carrot Museum. Do these carrots retain their lovely purple color after cooking? As a kid, I'd pick purple-colored green beans in my grandpa's garden, but they always turned green when cooked. I found that to be so disappointing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey Jublke,
    I've never tried steaming them but I do know that if you add them to a stir fry, everything else turns purplish.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Just did a search to see what purple carrots look like and came across your site.
    I was at a meieval re-enactment in Machynlleth (Wales) over the weekend where they were making a meieval stew - They used normal orange carrots because they couldn't find any purple carrots, but did point out that during the middle ages purple was the standard carrot colour in Britain (and I assume all over Europe!)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Cut quartered and place in pie tin. A little olive oil, fresh cut and snipped rosemary, little garlic and crushed black pepper. Bake to warm through, but still crisp, a little crushed sea salt after cooking.(adding salt before or during cooking softens)

    ReplyDelete
  6. That sounds absolutely delicious. I must try. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I didn't know there were so many kind of carrots! Actually I discovered it reading a V8 juice nutritional information label. It said the juice contained purple carrot, and then I had to check for it. May be I would try it, if I find it.....

    ReplyDelete
  8. I don't even know the way I finished up here, however I thought this submit used to be great. I do not recognise who you are however definitely you're going to a famous blogger if you aren't already. Cheers!

    Stop by my blog; makerfactured.com

    ReplyDelete
  9. It's going to be ending of mine day, except before finish I am reading this impressive post to increase my experience.

    Feel free to visit my web blog :: juice breville 800 juicer

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi there very cool site!! Guy .. Beautiful .. Wonderful .
    . I will bookmark your site and take the feeds
    additionally? I'm happy to find numerous helpful info here in the publish, we'd like develop more techniques
    on this regard, thank you for sharing. . . . . .

    Here is my web blog jack lalane power juicer

    ReplyDelete
  11. hello there and thank you for your information
    – I have certainly picked up something new from right here.
    I did however expertise several technical issues using this website, since I experienced to reload
    the web site lots of times previous to I could get it to load properly.
    I had been wondering if your web hosting is OK?
    Not that I am complaining, but sluggish loading instances times will often
    affect your placement in google and can damage your high-quality score if ads and marketing with
    Adwords. Well I'm adding this RSS to my email and can look out for much more of your respective interesting content. Make sure you update this again soon.

    Check out my webpage :: nge-server.com

    ReplyDelete

You might also like

Related Posts with Thumbnails