Friday, February 27, 2009

Roasted Carrots with Simple Tapenade

Oven roasted carrots is a simple appetizer or snack and is healthy as well.This can be made in a jiffy and you can serve it as such or with any dip if interested.I served it with a simple vegan tapenade dip.Tapenade is a simple French dip made of olives and capers with additional spices/herbs.Traditionally anchovies are used as well,but I avoided them.Tapenade can be used as a rub,sauce,sidedish or whatever way you like,though traditionally it is an appetizer/amuse bouche dip.

Roasted Carrots:
Ingredients:
Carrots: 2 large
Salt
Pepper
Vegetable Oil:1-2 tbsp
Preparation:
Peel,clean and slice the carrots into small medium thin slices.Toss the slices with salt,pepper and vegetable oil and then spread as a single layer in a lined baking sheet.Bake in a pre heated oven at 400F/200C for 15-20 minutes or more until they start browning.Start checking after 10 minutes.Serve warm as an appetizer/snack as itself or with tapenade or any other dip.If interested you can also add in other spices apart from pepper as well.The oven time may vary depending on thickness of slices.For very thick slices it can go upto 30 minutes as well.Mine were done by 15 minutes as they were almost thin.

These roasted carrots are my entry to Daring Aparna's FIC: Orange ,a colourful event by evergreen SunshineMom.

Tapenade:
Tapenade is a French or Provencal dish made of pureed/crushed olives,capers,anchovies and olive oil.The vegan versions avoid anchovies though.It derives its name from tapeno which is French for capers.Traditionally is made as a coarse paste of ingredients in a mortar and pestle.It can be used as a side dish,stuffing,rub,sauce or whatever way you like.It is flavoured differently as per taste,region etc.I made a simple version using pitted black olives in brine,capers,garlic and lime juice.There is no need to add salt at all.
Ingredients:
Black Olives: 4 tbsp
Capers: almost 1 tbsp
Garlic: 1 clove
Lemon juice: half of a small lemon
Olive Oil: 1 -2 tbsp
Preparation:
Chop the olives and capers into small pieces and peel and chop the garlic.Blend these chopped items adding lemon juice and olive into a coarse paste.

Carrots can be served as itself and tapenade can be used as itself as well.But together the sweet spiciness of carrots is well balanced by the tangyness of tapenade.So feel free to use the combo.

The tapenade,being French is going to AWED: France by DK

The combo of carrots and tapenade is a hearty appetizer and is going to Rachna's HealthyBites.

14 Comments:

lubnakarim06 said...

Wow Tapwnade sounds new and flavourful. Roasted Carrots sound yum.

Kitchen Chronicles said...

Both are new to me. Roasted Carrots, I think children will like them.

Priya Suresh said...

Tapenade looks great, roasted carrots looks gorgeous, wat a healthy dish:)

Unknown said...

wow such a beautiful color and helthy dish TC dear

Cham said...

It is like carrot fries with a dip, love the tapenade!

Sunshinemom said...

Wonderful appetizer indeed!! I don't know about the tapenade though. I eat olives but I don't like them!! Hee hee, I like the way you have put that - Daring Aparna and Evergreen Sunshinemom:)

Lo said...

Oooh. Sweet roasted carrots would be PERFECT with savory, salty tapenade. Good call!

Congrats on the FFF feature today!

Varsha Vipins said...

Never knew of this combo..I like the sound of tht Tapwnade..Must be yum..:)

KonkaniBlogger said...

That looks delish!

Mahimaa's kitchen said...

delicious looking carrots CL.. tapenade sounds very new...

jayasree said...

Roasted carrots look yummm and the combo sounds delicious.

Unknown said...

This is health food maxed out - I mean, carrots and olives, how much nicer can you get.

Unknown said...

Girl..I am in awe! How do you do it? with so much going on at ur end..u r still cooking up entries! Lemme get over my amazement before I come back again to comment about ur delicious tapanede!:))

DK
(http://culinarybazaar.blogspot.com)

Aparna said...

One more tasty yet healthy (read low-cal) item on my snack list! Never oven roasted carrots before.
Thanks for joining FIC Orange, Sweatha.
Btw, what am I daring about, I wonder?:)

Thanks for visiting my Blog

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