Carrot Bread

My niece made piles of carrot bread when living with me for a season of change much-needed. She can’t grate a carrot now without thinking of her ruthless Aunt Ruth. I, er, dangled the carrot of sustenance over her head in the form of hard work, producing the snacks a teenage gal can devour without thought of cost. If she wanted to eat goodies, she’d have to learn the power of her own hands. (I love working with the hands. It’s the stuff of recovery from every form of confusion, loss, addiction and grief.)

Then there’s the day I broke one over my own head accidentally in gest, sending a carrot top flying across the kitchen and my daughter to the floor in spasms of uncontrollable laughter. Yes, I intentionally hit myself over the head with one. She’d just been doing the same thing but MINE broke, a testimony to my hardheadedness. It had started out as a joke and ended up far funnier than we could’ve planned. But you probably had to be there…

So, here’s to sustenance made in the kitchen of homemade motivation:

Ingredients (roughly):

2 cups unbleached flour

2 cups pure cane unbleached sugar

3 cups grated carrots

1 cup corn oil

4 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla, cinnamon, salt, baking powder and soda

optional: allspice, nutmeg (per preference)

Oven at 325 for 30 to 40 minutes. Cool on a rack and slice. The unbleached flour and sugar are healthier and make for a denser bread as well as a less sweet bread. Refined flour and sugar make for too much sweet and I’ll spare you the dissertation on bleaching. I don’t always use 2 whole cups of sugar and have found that a whole cup of oil isn’t necessary either. And I often play around with the spices to change the experience.

This treat goes fast. When I feel my kids have had too much insta-gratification, I recruit them for redemption by carrot. They wash, grate, pour and wait while it bakes: the best therapy for disconnection from personal power, eh?

And Ev gives his review…