Pickled Carrots

Ingredients:
1 pound carrots
1 1/4 c water
1 c cider or plain vinegar
1/4 c sugar
2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed (I just used minced garlic in a jar)
1 1/2 T dill seeds (you can also use fresh or dried dill--if it's dried, put it in with the brine as you make it; if it's fresh, put it in the container before refrigerating)
1 1/2 T salt

Directions:

1. Buy carrots, especially if they have legs because that's just more fun. Arrange creatively on a cutting board and admire how orange and bumpy they are. Feel good about buying from the farmers market before realizing that these monster carrots are hella hard to peel.



2. Cut carrots into sticks. Add regular store-bought carrots because you had to throw away some of the farmer's market carrots because you cut them all wonky and plus, they had a lot of bad spots. Put carrot sticks in heat-proof container. Admire the symmetry. Wonder why Gourmet magazine hasn't called you yet to beg for your amazing food photography skills.




3. Combine all other ingredients in a pot. Wonder what the difference is between dill seeds and dried dill. Why do they look so different? They still smell the same. Speaking of smelling, take a sniff of your brine and break out into a vinegar coughing fit.

4. Bring brine to a boil. As soon as it's boiling, turn down the heat so that it is simmering. Hope your blog readers don't notice your kind-of messy stove.

5. Go kiss your Beara while you let the brine simmer for two minutes.

6. Pour the brine over the carrots. Fret that you didn't make enough brine to cover all the carrots and therefore the ones on the top only get seeds and no liquid and will be failures as pickled carrots. Damn underachievers. Vow to eat the bottom ones first.

7. Let the carrots cool, uncovered. After they have cooled, cover and chill in the 'fridge for at least a day so that they can soak up the flavors. Hope that your blog readers notice how nice your newly cleaned-out 'fridge looks.

8. Eat 'em up. Feel healthy and accomplished.