RECIPE: (Naughty) Glazed Carrots

I don't think it's a big secret here in the midwestern or southern states that Cracker Barrel has the best ever glazed carrots. They are, like, delicious. Decadently delicious. Honestly, you never knew that a humble carrot could taste so good.

Here at our house, where we are constantly occupied with the circumference of our hips and the clearness of our complexions and the state of our blood sugar, we do not often indulge in glazed carrots. Frankly, carrots are pretty good all on their own with just a smidge of butter and some sea salt, and who needs all those extra calories?

But I offer you the Coke Float Corollary, which follows thusly: Coke is good all on its own. Fizzy. Icy cold. All thirst-quenchy, sweet and sparkly. So having a Coke? That's a good thing. But if you plop a scoop of vanilla ice cream in that Coke -- and please do not bore me with your ice milk and your artificially sweetened "ice cream" because I will simply laugh in derision -- and you have something extra-special. Something that you should not drink all the time unless you want to be, well, the size of me. And trust me on this: you don't. Shut up.

So that brings us back to where we started, with the glazed carrots that have now not only have had butter, sugar and salt applied to them, but also the Coke Float Corollary, which has no discernable taste, unlike an an actual coke float, which is, like, mmmmmmmm.

*ahem*

Anyway, here's the recipe I found at Mama's Southern Cooking which we feel has the true Cracker Barrel flavor. For some reason, glazed carrots seem so right at this time of year and around the holidays, which is why we had them for dinner tonight.

2 pounds of fresh baby carrots

1/2 cup of butter

1/3 cup of sugar, or 1/2 cup of honey

1/2 teaspoon of salt

In a small pot add the carrots and cover with water. Bring to a boil reduce heat, cover and simmer over medium heat for about 10 minutes (OR steam them in the microwave for approximately 10 minutes.)

In a saucepan, melt the butter and the sugar. Add the carrots and salt. Saute over medium-low heat until carrots are fork tender. This could take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes depending upon the size of your baby carrots. Serve and enjoy for your harvest season or Yuletide cheer.