Carrot garden on a plate

I’m always looking for ways to get my kids to eat carrots. This idea comes from one of my favorite places in Ohio–the Culinary Vegetable Institute, CVI. If you’re not following Farmer Lee Jones’ twitter feed–the man behind CVI–you should. (He tweets from his tractor.) That’s where I saw this picture of this ingenious idea using fresh carrots.

Now Farmer Jones has the benefit of pulling carrots from his own garden. I bought my at a local grocers Mustard Seed Market. I couldn’t find any with the leafy greens close to the carrot so I had to improvise. I wedged the greens into the cut stalks before placing the carrots into the black beans.

I did steam my carrots briefly before serving them, but you could also offer these raw. Next time I’d add some asparagus and radishes maybe too.

Kids’ reaction: My youngest, already a carrot fan, loved the playful presentation and cleaned her plate. My tween reminded me that she, “didn’t like carrots,” took a couple bites, finished the beans and left most of her carrots on the plate. Ditto for my teen. But that’s about two more bites than they’d normally eat, which I consider success.