Honey Roasted Carrots with Fresh and Spicy Zhoug

These multi -coloured carrots seduced me at the market today. They were so beautiful I just had to find a way to turn them into a delicious meal.

Rainbow Carrots

Rainbow Carrots

I love middle eastern cuisine  – the spices, the flavours, the fragrances, the colours and the intensities. It’s the passion in middle eastern cooking,  it’s authentic and real honest food – that’s what I love!

This is what inspired me – I thought  Zhoug would make the perfect match to the beautiful carrots.  I decided roasting them slowly in the oven with honey, freshly squeezed lemon juice, sea salt and a drizzle of olive oil.

So, in the oven at 350F for about 40 min.

Zhoug is a fresh herb, garlic and chile sauce,  slightly spiced with cardamon, cumin and cloves, which I imagined would go really well with the roasted carrots.

Zhoug is not only wonderfully tasty, but also super healthy! Packed full of nutrients, antioxidants and flavours!

One of my all time favourite middle eastern cook books is Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamini’s book, Jerusalem, – it’s a visually stunning book with lots of great recipes. My Zhoug is strongly inspired by the recipe in the book, but with some tasty changes that I like.

Sauces like Zhoug, Harrissa, Chimicurri, and Muhamarra are amazing condiments. They make eating vegetables a total joy !

Fresh Parsley

Fresh Parsley

Zhoug

One bunch of big leaved parsley

One bunch cilantro

one green chilli

juice of one small lemon

1 teaspoon maple sirup

2 clove of garlic

4 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

sea salt

Wash the herbs thoroughly and put them in the blender, add the rest of the ingredients and blend into a pesto-like sauce.

Fresh Cilantro

Fresh Cilantro

Serve the roasted carrots warm or cold with the sauce and some pomegranate seeds

pomegranate

pomegranate

… and enjoy – an easy to make, but extremely tasty dish!

Honey Roasted Carrots

Honey Roasted Carrots

Perhaps, add a slice of good bread?

good bread

good bread

 I hope you have a wonderful weekend! 

VVP- Carrot cake with cranberries and orange, vanilla cream icing, served with orange sauce

Welcome to the famous, amazing, wonderful and incredible – the Virtual Vegan Potluck!

This is it – the day I have been looking forward to for weeks has finally arrived! The Virtual Vegan Potluck is a gathering of more than 100 enthused bloggers, from all over the world, sharing their creative vegan recipes. Maybe you have already been working your way around the virtual vegan potluck – if so, I hope you have enjoyed some wonderful food – appetizers, soups, breads, starters, mains, drinks, and now desserts!  I am so happy I signed up to make dessert! Because….

Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal,

since it will be the last thing your guests will

remember before they pass out all over the table” – William Powel

I love Vegan desserts and in particular Raw food  desserts make my heart beat. Apart from being sinfully delicious, they are nutritious and packed full of goodness! So go for it – eat, indulge, enjoy and be healthier for every bite.

One of my old time favorites – is carrot cake with creme cheese icing!

I have created an almost raw food version of this old time favorite, and I can’t wait to share it with you!

So lets get to it!

Carrot Cake with cranberries topped with an orange, vanilla cream icing, served with orange sauce

3 cups of grated carrots

1 1/2 cup cooked quinoa

2 oranges

1 cup of walnuts

1 cup of oats

10 -12 dates Mojol

2-4 spoons agave

1 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cardamom

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

In a bowl, add the grated carrots and the cooked sprouted quinoa, grate the rind of the oranges, and then add the juice of the oranges. In a blender, blend the walnuts and the oats till it becomes flour-like, and add to the carrots. Add the spices to the bowl and stir well. In a blender put the ingredients from the bowl and add the pitted dates, blend smooth – I needed to do it in two batches. Put it back in the bowl and add the agave and the cranberries.

Put it into a pie pan

Make the  Orange, Vanilla cream icing

2 cups of cashews ( that have been soaked for 2-4 hrs or overnight in the fridge)

1 orange

4 spoons of Agave

1 vanilla pod

Drain the soaked cashews and put them in the blender, add the juice of one freshly squeezed orange, add the agave and scrape out the vanilla bean. Put it in and blend into a smooth cream. Spread it on top of the cake and decorate with walnuts.

Serve with Orange Sauce

1 Orange

2 spoons of Agave

Squeeze the juice of the orange and add agave to make the sauce.

Sorry I had to take a bite and another one and one more …………………. and then tomorrow I will have leftovers for breakfast!

This is my contribution. Thank you for coming to the Virtual Potluck – I am thrilled you came!!

But before I let you go – lets raise our glasses and make a big heartfelt toast to the Virtual Potluck people! – The Virtual Vegan Potluck was initiated and arranged by one of my favorite virtual friends and bloggers, Annie at anunrefinedvegan!

She birthed this idea and made it possible – thank you Annie!! Thank you also to 3 more beautiful virtual friends and bloggers, Somer from Vedged Out  , Lidia from Veganbloggersunite and Jason from Jason and the Veganauts for helping make this event possible. Lots of work went into this – thank you guys you are amazing!!!

… and so the party continues the show goes on and on and on – click forward or backward as you please by clicking the “go forward” – “go back”  images below.

Enjoy and have fun