Wintry Roasted Carrots

One of my favorite lines from Twin Peaks is of course food related. "Nothing beats that taste sensation when maple syrup collides with ham!" Really though, you could use any salty meat..sausage, bacon. It's all about the salty/sweet. This dish speaks to the season, is super easy and only has three ingredients! Carrots and other root vegetables that usually store energy as starch, convert it into sugar as a sort of antifreeze when cold weather hits taking them to the peak of their sweetness and flavor. When I made these for the first time, the sweet maple and carrots with the smokey bacon filled my kitchen with the cheery smell of winter. You know, the smell of sweets baking and fireplaces blazing...It's just wonderful. You might up the charm of this dish by adding replacing some or all of the carrots with parsnips.

Maple Bacon Roasted Carrots

2lbs carrots

3 tbsp maple syrup

4 pieces of good quality bacon

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees (F). Line a shallow baking pan with foil (maple syrup burns and is sticky stuff...it will ruin your pans in you try to cook it straight on the pan). Peel the carrots, cut off the tops and trim off the ends. Cut the carrots into quarters to form sticks (as you can see in the photo). Lay out your carrot sticks in the baking pan. In a frying pan, render the fat of your bacon by cooking it over medium-low heat. Cook it until it's quite crispy. You really want a lot of liquid fat, 2 tbsp worth. Remove the bacon from the fat and let it cool on a paper towel before crumbling and setting it aside. Pour the bacon fat and the maple syrup over the carrot sticks, making sure they are all evenly coated. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until the carrots are nice and tender. Sprinkle the bacon rubble over the carrots and serve! EASY BREEZY!