Vegetable Sides: Butter & Sugar Glazed Carrots with Roasted Beets

To go along as a tasty side dish for my phyllo wrapped cheesy asparagus, I wanted to make some glazed and roasted root vegetables. (I also served the wraps with some of my fresh spicy garlic hummus!) In the fridge, I had some baby carrots and beets. Here’s how I prepared each vegetable! These amounts serve 2.

Vegetable Sides: Butter & Sugar Glazed Carrots with Roasted Beets

Ingredients:

1 cup baby carrots
1/4 cup unsalted butter
2 tbsp + 1 tsp white granulated sugar
3 small to medium-sized beets
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp dried rosemary
dash of salt and pepper
dash of thyme
dash of oregano
tin foil

Method For Beets:

Pre heat the oven to 425 F.
Place a piece of tin foil in a glass baking dish.
Wash the dirt off of the skin of the beets, and trim any leaves or stringy stuff off of the beets.
Place the washed beets in the tin foil with the olive oil, rosemary, salt & pepper, thyme and oregano.
Close up the tin foil to make a “package” inside of the baking dish, and place in the oven.
Bake for about 45 minutes, then open the package to check the beets. If a fork or knife doesn’t stab into the beet easily, close the package and bake for another 15 minutes. The beets should be done after an hour at the most.
Remove from the oven, open the package, and allow the beets to cool while you make the carrots!

Method For Carrots:

Place a frying pan on “just over” medium heat, and add the 1/4 cup of butter. Allow the butter to soften slightly.
Before the butter is fully melted, add the carrots.
As the butter melts more, add the 2 tbsp of sugar, and occasionally stir the carrots around the frying pan for 5 minutes.
For 2 minutes, add the remaining 1 tsp of sugar, and constantly stir the carrots, ensuring the butter and sugar are well blended onto the carrots.
After the 7 minutes is up, remove the pan from the heat.

To Serve:

With a fork stuck into the top of the beet, use the knife to cut off the top and bottom of the beet, then carefully peel off the skin with the knife. You want to keep the beet in as much of the original shape as possible…
Slice the beet into thin slices, and layer nicely on a plate. 🙂
With a fork, remove each of the carrots and carefully arrange on the plate. You don’t want the remaining butter in the pan to pour onto your plate, just the nice buttery glaze that is already on the carrots.