4 Carrots, 4 Basils

For at the least the first 25 years of my life, I probably never had a side dish of cooked carrots prepared with anything other than a little butter, salt and sugar.  That's simply how my mom and grandmothers made them.  Carrots are great that way.  A little butter never hurts and the fact that mom or grandmother cooked them, makes them even better.

Over the past few years, some of my favorite ways to cook carrots range from roasted with coriander or tossed in chopped rosemary and grilled.  Recently, I've come to enjoy the combination of fresh basil and carrot.  The heirloom carrots that I pulled from the garden the other day were perfect for this preparation.  After the carrots were cleaned,  I cut the larger ones in half.  I boiled those about 3 minutes, then added the baby carrots for a couple more minutes until all were al dente.  I drained them, then tossed them with extra virgin olive oil, basil, honey, white pepper and kosher salt.  The white pepper has a milder, less spicy flavor, than black pepper.  Did you know that black peppercorns are ripened white peppercorns?  We have 4 different types of basil in the backyard, so a couple of leaves from each were all that was needed.  I think the purple basil looks great in contrast to the carrots. 4 fresh pulled heirloom carrot varieties and 4 fresh basils...Isn't summer great!