I haven’t had much chance to cook with home-grown vegetables this summer since I haven’t been at my family home to enjoy the garden. Last year I loved spending lots of time outside helping my Mum out with the gardening, and cooking and eating everything too of course. I shared some pictures of the garden/ our harvest here.

Though I haven’t been home lately, my Mum was in London over the weekend and brought me a ton of veg! I have a feeling she’s struggling to stay on top of eating everything without me there! A few of my next recipes will be featuring the home-grown produce.

First up- these Chantenay carrots!

These fresh-from-the-earth, imperfect specimens are so much more appealing than the luminous orange, uniform carrots you find in the supermarkets, aren’t they?

I gave them the roasting treatment to get them nice and tender and brought out their natural sweetness even more with a maple-orange glaze.

I added chickpeas to the mix too. If you haven’t had roasted chickpeas yet, you definitely need to try them. If you cook them a bit longer than I did here they get really crunchy and make a great snack. I cooked them alongside the carrots here which was just long enough for them to be crisp on the outside but still creamy inside.

The Maple-Orange Roasted Chickpeas & Carrots are a nice side-dish, or you could roast some potatoes at the same time and turn it into a one-pan meal, or do what I did and use them in a “bowl meal”. My other components were tamari-seasoned brown rice and steamed spinach.

Print Maple-Orange Roasted Chickpeas & Carrots Yield: 2-4 Servings Ingredients 1-1/2 C Cooked chickpeas (1 Can, drained and rinsed)

175g/6oz Chantenay carrots, halved or quartered if large (you can also use regular carrots chopped into small chunks)

1 Tbsp Olive oil

A few sprigs fresh thyme

1-1/2 Tbsp Maple Syrup

Zest and juice of half an orange

Sea salt Instructions Preheat oven to 200C/400F In a roasting dish, toss the chickpeas and carrots with the olive oil. Sprinkle liberally with sea salt (the salt balances the sweetness) and the leaves removed from the sprigs of thyme. Cook for approx 20 minutes, stirring halfway through cooking time. Add the maple syrup, orange juice and zest to the pan and toss well. Cook for a further 5 minutes, or until carrots are tender and beginning to brown at edges and the chickpeas are crisp. *UPDATE*Some readers are finding their carrots take longer than stated to cook through. If using regular carrots, not chantenay, I recommend blanching them before roasting to start the cooking process and prevent everything drying out from having to roast for longer. 3.1 http://www.coconutandberries.com/2014/08/31/maple-orange-roasted-chickpeas-carrots-brown-rice-bowl/

Have you been growing your own vegetables this year? If so, what’s been the most successful?

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