It’s getting dark here. Really early.

So, for a pick-me-up weeknight meal to bring some light into this darkness, I decided to make this Roasted Carrots with Farro, Chickpeas & Herbed Crème Fraîche dish.

OK, truth be told, I had carrots lingering in the crisper on their way to floppiness.

I’m not a big fan of carrots, and feel really bad about that, as they’re so good for you! I prefer to eat them raw as a mid-day snack. But, when I saw this recipe, I knew it would be a perfect way to save the carrots.

But they aren’t just ‘carrots’. They’re named ‘Möhre Lila Luder’ and I dare to look that up on Google Translate for the translation from German.

They’re beautiful, with a nice violet skin and bright orange in the middle. But when you peel them, your hands turn purple.

Their name is deserved.

However, they earned a gold star in this dish. I didn’t have farro, so I used barely instead, which brought a nice nutty flavour. And since I only made half of the recipe, I could reserve half of the cooked barley for Teen T and half the chickpeas for hummus.

All the ingredients combined was just…yum! The carrots turned really sweet and stood up well to the lemony, garlicy barley/chickpea mix. And very filling, as a veggie meal.

For Teen T, I tried mixing the barley with some leftover tomato sauce, which he tried and gave a resounding YUK. *sigh* He was way more adventuresome with food when younger (or I was better at sneaking stuff like barley into him).

Maybe I should have gave him the Möhre Lila Luder dish instead. But chickpeas would be crossing the line.

At least the dog ate the barley.