Name: Roasted carrots with savory mushrooms
Prep time: 90 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 120 min
Ingredients: 2 pounds carrots; 2 tbsp olive oil; fresh thyme ((or other fresh or dried herb of your choice)); 1 oz . dried oyster or calamari mushrooms (, rehydrated, (1/3 cup chopped fresh mushrooms)); salt and pepper to taste

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Roasted carrots with savory mushrooms are a perfect side dish for any occasion. Carrots pair well with just about all types of meat.

Today in Minnesota, it was a cool and rainy day. A perfect day to fire up the oven and roast some veggies! I love cooked carrots and I decided to kick it up a notch and roast carrots with savory mushrooms.

Preparing The Carrots

I went to the local grocery and found some carrots with the full green tops on them and they were the skinny kind of carrots. Not the big thick ones you’d have to cut up to get them cooked. I guess there is nothing wrong with that, but these were easy to prepare. Cut the tops off leaving a couple of inches of greenery, wash them and kind of scrub the outer skin. You don’t even have to peel these tender, little beauties. And, I must say, they make for cool looking photos!

The mushrooms I used were dried because the store didn’t have any fresh oyster or calamari mushrooms. I just thought that these would give the carrots the proper savory taste, much more so than button mushrooms or even portabellas.

To use the dried mushrooms, all you have to do is soak them in water until they are nice and flexible. I soaked these for about an hour and a half. Remove the mushroom pieces from the water and use paper towels to squeeze the excess water out of them.

Save the water that they were soaked in. This can be added to gravy or used in cooking to give a mushroomy essence to your dish. Save it in your refrigerator for up to a couple of weeks or freeze it.

Roasting The Carrots

Clean your carrots and place them on a sheet pan with sides. Coat with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add some herb of your choice. I sprinkled the carrots with fresh thyme leaves. Dried spices would be fine too. You just want to add another flavor profile that makes everything taste great!

Preheat your oven to 375, roast the carrots for 20 minutes, then lower the temp to 325 and add the mushrooms and roast for another 10 minutes. Take out of the oven and sprinkle with chopped parsley or chives. Yum.

Easy as that!

The mushrooms really add a different dimension to roasted carrots. Cut off a piece of carrot and stick your fork in a piece of mushroom. Next stop...your mouth!

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