Ranch-Glazed Baby Carrots

October and the writing is deepening — the fragments are becoming chapters, the chapters are becoming a shape, and the shape is a book about food and memory and the women who stand in kitchens and refuse to stop cooking. The book does not have a title yet. The book does not have a publisher. The book does not have a deadline or a word count or a marketing plan. The book has only the writing, and the writing has only the morning, and the morning has only the kitchen table and the pen and the coffee and the silence, and the silence is productive, and the productivity is the healing, because the writing is how I process the grief and the writing is how I process the joy and the writing is how I process the move that is coming, the terrible necessary merciful move that will take Marvin out of this house and into a room in Cedarhurst where he will be safe and cared for and visited by a woman who brings food every day until she cannot.

I made a beef stew — the October stew, the warming food, the food that takes three hours and fills the house with the smell of braised meat and vegetables and red wine and thyme, and the filling of the house with smell is a form of presence, a way of saying: this house is lived in, this kitchen is operating, this woman is still here, still cooking, still filling pots and filling rooms and filling the hours with the specific meaningful labor of making food from nothing, which is what Ashkenazi women have always done, and which I will always do, because the doing is the living, and the living is the chain, and the chain does not break.

The stew filled the house the way I needed it to — three hours of smell, of presence, of proof that the kitchen was still operating. But it’s the carrots I keep coming back to: the small, simple ones, glazed and warm and ready in twenty minutes, the thing you make on the side while the big pot does its slow, serious work. There is something right about that, about having both — the labor and the ease, the chapter and the sentence. These ranch-glazed baby carrots have been on my table every October for years now, and they will be there next October too, in whatever kitchen I am standing in.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 lb baby carrots
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 packet (1 oz) dry ranch seasoning mix
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish (optional)

Instructions

Parboil the carrots. Bring a medium saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add the baby carrots and cook for 6–8 minutes, until just tender but not soft. Drain and set aside.
Build the glaze. In a large skillet over medium heat, melt the butter with the olive oil. Add the dry ranch seasoning and honey, stirring until the mixture is fragrant and beginning to bubble, about 1 minute.
Glaze the carrots. Add the drained carrots to the skillet and toss to coat thoroughly. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 8–10 minutes, until the glaze thickens and the carrots are lightly caramelized at the edges. Season with black pepper.
Finish and serve. Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with fresh parsley if desired. Serve immediately alongside a braise, a stew, or any meal that has been cooking low and slow all afternoon.

Nutrition (per serving)

Ranch-Glazed Baby Carrots — The October Kitchen, Still Running