As much as I love basic buttered sauteed carrots, I think I have found a new love of carrots. These sweet succulent carrots are just divine! I was doing a birthday dinner for a friend of ours and I had lots of carrots that I wanted to do something with. I wanted something on the sweet side with a bit of a syrupy coating, fruity with fresh ginger and a hit of cinnamon. I started with scouting my cabinets to see what I had on hand, making a list of things that sounded good together and this is what I came up with.

I served the carrots as a side dish to my Pepper Steak in the slow cooker over rice and home canned green beans. For desert I served individual Apple Crisp in ramekins topped with ice cream. I think she was pleased.

With the holidays coming up, this also makes a great dish for a holiday meal.  It will be on my table!  Except I will be doubling or tripling the recipe!  Plus it’s such an easy side dish to make all in one pot.  The holidays tend to be such stressful times and I think dishes should be the simplest during those times.

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Here’s how I made them.

Pineapple Cranberry Carrots

Peel and cut up the carrots into 1/2 inch chunks.

In a 2 quart pot, combine carrots, dried cranberries, water and salt.

Add the crushed pineapple, orange zest, brown sugar, butter, fresh ginger and cinnamon.  Over medium-high heat, bring it to a boil.

A note about fresh ginger. After peeling it, I use a microplane style zester so that it’s really fine. That way you get the flavor throughout the dish without biting chunks of ginger.

Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook covered for 15-20 minutes until the carrots are fork tender and the juices are reduced to a syrupy consistency.

And there you have the most delicious succulent sweet tasting carrots on the planet.  You’ve got to try it!  Oh!  You know what else would be good?  Top it with some chopped candied pecans.  Oh my goodness.  I’ll have to do that next time.

Do you prefer sweet or savory carrots?

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Here’s the printer friendly recipe.