Tofu for Two

I know four carrots doesn’t sound much like a meal, but served alongside a pile of my avocado-yogurt dip, these fries did make a perfect light lunch to start the week with. Smoky chipotle flavor roasted right into the heart of my sweet carrots, and they came out of the oven crispy around the edges and soft on the inside. Extremely tasty, yet so simple – as I guess the best recipes always are.

I think this amount would be enough as a side dish for 2-3. The quality of carrots really does make a difference here – I used a bunch of organic carrots that still had a nice protective layer of dirt on them when they reached us. Root vegetables keep better and stay much more flavorful if they’re not cleaned after harvesting, but unfortunately the supermarkets rarely carry “dirty” veggies.

The chipotle I used in this recipe is the adobado kind. Heikki mashed a can of chipotles in adobo sauce when he made the black beans from Veganomicon, and we still have some of the paste in the fridge. Chipotles are amazing in their depth of flavor, but I’m sure these fries would turn out well with other spices if they are hard to find.

The Carrots:

• 4 large carrots, scrubbed and cut into sticks
• 2 teaspoons mashed chipotles in adobo sauce
• salt to taste
• a dash of olive oil to coat

I cut the carrot into thin fry-size sticks and then tossed them with the chipotle and the olive oil. There’s no need to use much oil, just enough to coat the carrots. Then I spread the carrot sticks on a baking sheet in one layer, and sprinkled them with salt. I baked my carrots in 200 degrees Celsius on the upper rack of the oven: first for 35 minutes, then tossed them around, and then another 10-15 minutes until slightly charred here and there.

The Avocado Dip:

• 1 ripe avocado
• 3/4 dl plain soy yogurt
• pinch of salt
• pinch of sugar
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• black pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon cilantro, chopped

I simply mashed everything together with a fork and chilled while the carrots were baking.