When I was pregnant, I ate a lot of carrots. A. Lot. But, because I'm crazy, I tried to limit the amount of my intake due to naturally occurring nitrates in the carrots (told you... C.R.A.Z.Y). When my kids were born, I made my own baby food from scratch... for all four. However, the only food I did not make from scratch, but chose to purchase, was pureed carrots. Every book I read said that when you puree your own carrots, you are unable leach out all of the nitrates, and I certainly didn't want to risk any extra nitrate consumption, when it was otherwise avoidable. 

Regardless of how and why I limited my intake, my kids are obsessed with carrots. They like to have them, A. LOT. These days I am less concerned about naturally occurring nitrate intake, and more concerned about the realistic fear that they might turn orange. I also like carrots, but these days, I find I need to switch it up a little bit, so we (I) don't always have them the same way. 

Ingredients:

6 cups of julienned carrots

1/4 cup soy sauce

6 Tbsp of salted butter

1 tsp sugar

Directions:

Bring a large stock pot of salted water to boil. Once a rolling boil is achieved, blanch your carrots in the water until just tender... about 7 minutes. (Technically not a true blanch, since you are leaving them in longer than a minute... but you don't want them to take on any extra water, or become too mushy). Remove from water and drain. Empty pan of water and return to stove. On low, melt the butter and whisk in soy sauce and sugar. Return carrots to pan, and stir until sauce coats them all. Cook on low for 5 minutes. Remove and serve.