I purposely left carrots in the ground last fall to dig up this spring. Luckily I didn't realize how many I left.
It is amazing to me how the carrots are still firm and crunchy after spending 4 months buried under snow and then suffering thaws and re-freezings. I find the spring dug carrots do not have quite as intense "vegetable" flavor and are much sweeter than those eaten last summer.
The spring dug garlics are also quite sweet, less intense. They taste more like the scapes than the bulbs. For dinner, I picked new ramps and sorrel and last season's sage and thyme. Then I chopped it all with the spring garlic(greens and all) put it under the skin of a local organic chicken, which I put on a bed of the sliced carrots and roasted it. Simple, fresh and flavorful.
I photographed the carrots in front of part of my stinging nettle patch. I am a nettle wimp. Pam Mountain, a fabulous cook, is a huge fan of nettles. She extols their health and culinary virtue. She sautes them with other greens and puts them in soups. I am convinced, even sauteed nettles, are prickly going down.
As I said, I am a nettle wimp.
