A beautiful bunch of carrots

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The quandary of what to make with that beautiful bunch of carrots picked up from the Stratford farmer’s market on Sunday…

I wanted a light Sunday evening meal and did not want to have any meat in the recipe. I looked through books, looked on-line, and nothing really grabbed my attention… The flavours just weren’t right. I gathered ideas, a little from here, a little from there, keeping in mind what was available in the pantry, fridge and freezer, and this is what I came up with.

Roasted Carrot and Beetroot Salad with Poached Egg, Carrot Top Pesto & Dukkah

I had recently made fig vinegar and hadn’t had the opportunity to try it out. I had beetroot from a previous farmer’s market, beautiful fresh eggs picked up from the farm gate near Sale, and then there was fresh goats cheese in the fridge. I had heard about using carrot tops to make pesto, but the recipe I found wasn’t what I was after, so I changed it totally, adding coriander instead of basil, more garlic, pistachios in place of walnuts, and using quite a bit more parmesan cheese and olive oil as well. I also wanted to use cumin and dukkah, so now had the makings for a beautiful salad.

Fig Vinegar

I only wanted to use the cumin on the roasted halved carrots, I made a dressing using my fig vinegar and coated ribbons of carrot in that before roasting them. The rest of the dressing was used to coat some fresh leaves later in the recipe.

The carrot top pesto was amazing, and the left overs are now in the freezer ready to be used on another salad, in soup, on pasta or drizzled over a roasted vegetable pie. I used a slice of sour dough for my husband’s salad and for me, I used a slice of my own Gluten free bread.