Serving Tonight | Flavorful recipes you can look forward to serving tonight

Harissa Carrots with Yogurt and Chaat Masala Granola

This is how I wan to eat all the time: roasty vegetables, with something fresh and creamy, showered with a crunchy, salty topping. Harissa Carrots with Yogurt and Chaat Masala Granola, I luh’ you. I actually just read in Bon Appetit magazine that charred carrots with yogurt is on their list of things they are ready to see go away. Yet, here I am, posting this recipe. Because it is amazingly good! With the perfect combo of sweet, tangy, salty, roasty, crunchy… I just can’t agree, Bon Appetit! Super-roasted, spicy carrots on top of cooling, tangy yogurt, topped with this crispy, salty granola are still a good thing. So, here we go.

roasted carrots on a swirl of yogurt, topped with granola and chopped cilantro on a white plate with a fork

I am borrowing the carrot part of this recipe from this cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi. It’s my new favorite way to roast carrots – dousing them in butter, honey, and harissa and blasting them in a 475 degree oven for 12 minutes. Harissa, if you’re not familiar, is a North African seasoning full of hot peppers, paprika, salt, garlic, cumin, etc. It’s fiery and delicious. You can find it in paste form at some grocery stores or online. We also carry it in a dry spice blend form at the spice shop my mom and I own in Duck.

spicy, crispy Bff’s

Once you’ve roasted your carrots to a nice, borderline-burnt, sweet and spicy crisp, the rest of this recipe is super basic. Stir a squirt of lemon juice and a pinch of salt into some Greek yogurt, spread it on a plate, pile on the carrots, and sprinkle it all with this chaat masala granola. Remember that granola? Full of buttery cashews and pistachios, loaded with warm Indian spice, tangy dried apricots and coconut flakes? Yup – turns out, these spicy carrots are its soul mate. They belong together, 100%.

The flavor combo of everything in this recipe is so satisfying – we haven’t even mentioned… it’s also healthy. Who cares, doesn’t matter, let’s not bog Harissa Carrots with Yogurt and Chaat Masala Granola down with labels, K? It’s just crazy delicious and worth making right now.

Harissa Carrots with Yogurt and Chaat Masala Granola

Buttery, roasted, spicy carrots on a shmear of tangy yogurt, topped with a salty, crunchy granola – shouldn’t we be eating like this all the time?

Author: Megan
Prep Time: 6 minutes
Cook Time: 14 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes
Yield: 4 servings 1x
Category: side dish
Method: roasting
Cuisine: Indian/North African

Scale

Ingredients

2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp honey
2 TBS harissa (either in the paste or powdered form)
2 TBS unsalted butter, melted
2 TBS olive oil
salt
1 3/4 lbs carrots, peeled and sliced into long, thin batons
1/2 C cilantro leaves, chopped
a squirt of lemon juice
1 C Greek yogurt
1/2 C Chaat Masala Granola

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the cumin seeds, honey, harissa, butter, 1 TBS oil, and 3/4 tsp of salt. Add the carrots, toss to coat, and spread onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper – use two baking sheets if one is too crowded.
Roast for 12-14 minutes, until the carrots are brown in some spots.
Stir together the Greek yogurt, 1 TBS olive oil, a squirt of lemon juice, and a pinch of salt.
To serve, spread the yogurt on your plates or on one big serving platter, place carrots on top, sprinkle evenly with Chaat Masala Granola, and top with cilantro.

Notes

The carrot portion of this recipe is from Yotam Ottolenghi’s cookbook Simple.

South Beach Takeout, Catering & Delivery is variety at its best

I met Wayne and Shawn Everhart of South Beach Takeout, Catering, & Delivery in between the lunch and dinner rush on a Wednesday afternoon. These guys are all “yes ma’am’s” and “no ma’am’s” with lots of eye contact and polite, fluid conversation. They’re the type of guys you’d love to bring home to mom- charming and friendly, not to mention super-talented in the kitchen. They both come across a little modest and reserved but any shyness is unwarranted. Wayne, Shawn, their sister Miranda, and the rest of the Everhart family with a hand in the restaurant, could afford to be a bit cocky. With a contemporary mix of Asian, Mexican, and American food plus plenty of guilty pleasures and outside-the-box vegan options on the menu, the flavors here are deliciously loud and alluring, benefiting from homemade sauces, fresh ingredients, and edgy concepts. This food is recognizable but with interesting twists, offering something for everybody.

Pumpkin Gnocchi

We’re ready for this, right? Pumpkin stuff? Even though we have highs in the 90’s on the OBX this week? Yes! It is October and I am here for all the pumpkiny squashy goodness! In the name of trying to force autumn vibes into our lives, here is Pumpkin Gnocchi with step-by-step instructions.

Pecan Kale Pesto

This nutty, citrusy, rich-tasting Pecan Kale Pesto is kale’s best version of itself. Please, don’t even eat another piece of kale until you try it in this pesto.

The recipe is a mishmash of Vivian Howard’s almond pesto from this cookbook (I am crazy about this book – so many southern gems in there) and a pecan pesto I had with veggie ravioli at one of the best restaurants on the OBX – The Saltbox Cafe.

Banana Pecan Muffins with Streusel Topping

Muffins and a hurricane. Dorian passed through last week and we are fine and grateful but other parts of the OBX were not so lucky. Here is a great way to help a very special foodie in Ocracoke whose business was destroyed. Meanwhile, Joey, Bear, and I spent hurricane day watching the storm and making Banana Pecan Muffins with Streusel Topping. Dramatic skies and a neighborhood on the verge of disruption really brings out the need for comfort food and these muffins hit the spot. Let’s talk nutty, cinnamon-y baked goods, shall we?

Chaat Masala Granola

Contrast! Salty, nutty, sweet, and spicy contrast is just squealing out of this Chaat Masala Granola. It’s a savory granola, which, you could say with an eye roll. Like, “What am I going to do with savory granola?🙄” Or, you could say with an excited gasp, like, “Oooooo, savory granola!😱”I say it like the latter. Eat this delicious crunch-bomb on it’s own as a snack or use it to add crispy yummy contrast to other foods, like yogurt, roasted veggies, salads, fruit, or rice. It’s not sooooo savory that it can’t pass for breakfast on that yogurt; I’ve done that every day this week. But it is just the right savoriness for those spicy roasted carrots or that olive-oily cauliflower rice.

Chicken in Coconut Milk with Swoodles

This creamy, veggie-loaded, sweet and spicy Chicken in Coconut Milk with Swoodles is a twist on this Brazilian Chicken recipe my mom introduced me to a few years ago. Chicken and I are good buddies, I love it and will eat it every night if you let me. If you add warm spices and coconut milk, I’m there, with bells on, fork in hand.

Much like this peanutty-curry-chicken thing, I’ve made this dish so many times over the years that it’s slowly morphed into almost a completely new thing. I stuck with the original recipe’s spice combo: cayenne, cumin, turmeric, and coriander (from my fave spice shop: mine!). But I chopped up the chicken (bite-sized pieces expedite getting this goodness into my mouth), added a little chicken bullion, brown sugar, and extra veggies (flavor!), and stirred in some swoodles to round it all out (swoodles = spiralized sweet potatoes=💗).

Chef Dan Lewis: giving us the where, the why, and the how of it all

Any encounter with Dan Lewis, chef, sommelier, and owner of Coastal Provisions Oyster Bar and Wine Cafe, leaves you feeling enticed and curious, wondering what was left unsaid or unseen. You get a sense there’s more he can tell you, more he can feed you, more he can teach you. It’s not that he’s holding back, it’s that the depths of Dan’s knowledge, experience, and skill open pockets of perspective and flavor that keep you wanting… more.

Everything is interesting and layered – the food and where it came from, the wine and what it goes with, us and our collective impact on our town, our waters, our planet. When Dan and business partner Scott Foster opened Coastal Provisions in 2006, it began as a gourmet market and evolved over time to a full-service restaurant and oyster bar. Dan’s understanding of oysters runs deep- not just how to prepare them (there’s a raw oyster topped with spicy ginger shaved ice and salty pearls of soy sauce that’s still floating around in my head from a dinner I had here two years ago), but Dan also understands and preaches the oyster’s massive role in cleaning our waters and supporting our ecosystem. More than just a chef, somm, and owner of this Café, Dan is also now a partner in a local oyster farming operation, helping to further educate and share the sustainability of these tasty bivalves with us.

A Feast for the Senses at Masala Bay Grill

Dining at Masala Bay Grill is an immersive, sensory experience. The traditional Northern Indian food they create always leaves me with a comfortable, full, glowy feeling that I suspect has to do with all the spices, flush with nourishing antioxidants, good for your body and mind. The curries, vindaloos, and tikka masalas are warming and comforting and enticing; each dish inherently rich in flavor and nuance. The bewitching accompaniment to dinner at Masala Bay is the sunset view that’s almost too pretty to post on your Instagram. The setting, the food, and the kindness of the staff blends together for a tranquil, inviting afternoon or evening meal unlike any other on the beach.

view of a sunset over the Currituck Sound — The sunset view from our table on the deck at Masala Bay Grill

Fresh Butterbean Hummus

The most important thing to note about this creamy, earthy, garlicky Fresh Butterbean Hummus recipe is… WE GOT A PUPPY!

English Mastiff puppy napping on the floor

OMG, we got an English Mastiff puppy and his name is Bear, in honor of our sweet Caesar Bear we said goodbye to in April. He is our cute little butterbean and we are crazy about him💕.

Back to food. Let’s discuss other wonderful things, like how this hummus takes about 2 seconds to make, all in the food processor. This is the one I love because it has everything (big ‘ol work bowl and cheese grating/veggie-shredding blade? yep!) and it’s easy to use and clean. Here, it’s giving you a lush hummus, with a whipped-like texture, full of lemony-garlic flavor, and punched up with earthy spices and a bite from half a jalapeno (optional, but delicious).