If your exposure to carrots is limited to the ones you find at a traditional grocery store, you’re pretty certain they only come in one color – orange – and two sizes – regular and baby. Would you be surprised to know that carrots are available in a whole range of colors including red, purple, yellow and even white? And we’ll let you in on a secret: Those baby carrots sold in plastic bags? They’re not “baby” carrots at all. They’re fully grown carrots, cut into short lengths and run through a machine originally designed for peeling potatoes so they come out with that cute little rounded shape.
Celia Barss of Woodland Gardens, a certified organic market garden in Winterville, about 10 minutes from Athens, takes great pride in her carrots. Her primary crop is a Nantes-type carrot, slender and crunchy, sweet and a deep orange color.
“They’re our biggest seller, and I think people love them because they’re just so sweet and fresh,” said Barss. But she also grows small round carrots, red carrots, purple carrots and a variety that produces carrots in a rainbow of colors.
“Restaurants love having the different colors, but I find that our customers at the market really want that orange carrot,” she said. Woodland Gardens sells its produce to restaurants and at the Morningside Farmers’ Market each Saturday morning and through a community supported agriculture program in the Athens area.
Winter carrots are her favorite.
“They’re just sweeter in the winter,” Barss said. She finds the unusually colored carrots have slightly thicker peels and suggests they work well for roasting. “Don’t peel them, just scrub the carrots. The ones we sell are so young that the skins won’t have any of that bitterness you can get with older carrots, and they’ll keep their color if you leave the peel on,” she said.
At Woodland Gardens, they plant carrots every month except June and July when it’s just too hot for good germination. Carrots planted in the spring or fall will be ready to harvest as baby carrots (the real kind, not the cut-and-shaped kind) in about 2 months. In the winter, it will take 3 months to get them to that size. Carrots overwinter well, so they can stay in the ground during cold weather to grow larger and larger without any worries about bitterness.
Carrots aren’t the easiest crop to grow in Georgia’s clay soils. The tiny seedlings need soft, friable soil to make long, straight roots. Barss makes sure to plant her carrots in the most amended soil in her fields since a stressed carrot can be a bitter carrot.
At home, carrots can keep in your refrigerator for up to 3 months. One medium carrot has about 25 calories and over 200 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A. That medium carrot will yield about a 1/2 (half) cup chopped carrots. Carrots are members of the parsley family and if you can find carrots with their greens still attached, you’ll be able to see the family resemblance. I’ve never used carrot greens, although I understand they’re edible if also a little bitter.
At local farmers markets
Local markets with winter hours
Dacula Farmers Market, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., Saturdays. ranchoalegrefarm.com
Decatur Farmers Market, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Saturdays,3 -6 p.m. Wednesdays. decaturfarmersmarket.com/wordpress/
Dunwoody Green Market, some vendors take pre-orders and deliver on Wednesdays, 10:30 a.m.-noon. www.dunwoodygreenmarket.com
Emory Farmers Market, noon-5.p.m., Tuesdays during school year. www.emory.edu/dining/emory_farmers_market.php
Morningside Farmers’ Market, 8-11:30 a.m. Saturdays. www.morningsidemarket.com
For sale
Vegetables: arugula, Asian greens, broccoli, celery, chard, collards, frisee, kale, lettuce, mache, microgreens, radicchio, radishes, rutabagas, scallions, sweet potatoes, turnips
From local reports
Carrot Cake
Hands on: 20 minutes
Total time: 1 hour
Serves: 16
Carrots are the easy healthy vegetable choice. Carrot sticks are a staple of veggie trays, and baby carrots turn up in lots of lunch bags. But in today’s column we’re celebrating the decadent side of carrots, featuring them shredded and stirred into a luscious carrot cake. Carrot cakes with cream cheese frosting seem to have appeared in American cookbooks starting in the 1960s. This is the version I grew up eating, courtesy of my mom’s recipe files. It includes pecans and carrots, but you can add or substitute pineapple, raisins or coconut. Each has its fans.
1 1/2 (one and a half) cups vegetable oil
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups grated carrots (about 4 large carrots)
1 cup chopped pecans, plus extra for garnish if desired
1 (8-ounce) package low-fat cream cheese
1/4 (quarter) cup (1/2 [half] stick) unsalted butter
4 cups powdered sugar, plus more if needed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease 2 9-inch cake pans. Place circles of parchment inside each pan and lightly grease. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, combine oil, sugar and baking soda. When well mixed, add eggs and stir until completely combined.
In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Add to oil mixture, stir, then add carrots and pecans. Stir together until well mixed.
Divide batter between cake pans. Bake 30 minutes or until cake just pulls away from the sides of the pans. Cool in pans 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack and allow to cool completely.
To make the frosting, in the bowl of a food processor, combine cream cheese and butter and process until smooth. Add sugar and vanilla. Process until light and fluffy. Add more sugar if needed to make a spreadable consistency.
To assemble, place one cake layer on serving dish. Spread 1 cup frosting over layer. Place second cake layer on first, and spread top and sides with remaining frosting. Garnish with pecans if desired. Refrigerate cake, covered, if it will not be served within one hour.
Per serving: 589 calories (percent of calories from fat, 48), 6 grams protein, 72 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams fiber, 32 grams fat (7 grams saturated), 69 milligrams cholesterol, 399 milligrams sodium.
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