Election #TweetYourShabbat: Honey roasted carrots with Greek yogurt, pomegranate and mint
Honey roasted carrots with Greek yogurt, pomegranate and mint Image by Carly Pildis
By Carly Pildis November 6, 2020
#tweetyourshabbat is a global movement founded by Carly Pildis, celebrating the struggle and joy of getting Shabbat on the table every week. This is a place for real dinners and real conversations about Jewish life. Join us at Forward in sharing what you’ll be eating and how your feeling this week at #TweetYourShabbat
Honey roasted carrots with Greek yogurt, pomegranate and mint Image by Carly Pildis
This is the advice that was hammered into me as a young organizer on the Obama campaign in 2012. The workload on campaigns is enormous, the stress level is very high, and it is easy to completely abdicate on the self-care front. Campaigns are a marathon, not a sprint, and you won’t make it to election day if you don’t take good care of your body. This is advice I pass on to the young organizers I work with at JDCA. I ask them, “What should you do today? They roll their eyes and yell, “Eat a vegetable!”
I trot out horror stories to hammer my point home. A close friend who fainted on the White House lawn, in front of the President— the Secret Service called an ambulance. A cousin who passed out during Bibi’s joint address of Congress. An organizer who fell asleep behind the wheel during the final weeks of the Obama campaign, totaling a car and lucky to walk away unharmed. Our bodies need to be treated well in order to fuel our organizing. Walking Zombies are not helpful. I urge young organizers to treat themselves like athletes and pay very close attention to their bodies. I make them repeat this mantra: Eat a vegetable. Hydrate. Call Your Mom. Sleep for 5 hours.
I did not take my advice this week. Unless eggrolls count as a vegetable.
This week has been intense, for myself and for all Americans. I’ve eaten more takeout and downed more coffee than I care to admit. Self-care went out the window in favor of marathon phone banks and all-nighters watching returns come in. Moments in my hall of shame this week include setting a small kitchen fire while making pasta and falling fast asleep on a conference call.
As I am writing the race has not been called, but I am extraordinarily proud of the work the Jewish Democratic Council of America did, including contacting over 630,000 Jewish voters to turn out the Jewish vote, and moving the needle with Jewish voters up 11 points from 2016, with over 77% favoring Biden. The work has been invigorating and fills me with hope for our country’s future and for the future of the American Jewish community. I am profoundly grateful, and profoundly in need of a nap and a salad.
We can’t win the big fights if we don’t take good care of ourselves. Fights for justice are about valuing human life and human dignity -— and that includes people who work for justice full time. People matter. Including you.
This Shabbat I am focused on vegetables. Fall brings a bounty of beautiful vegetables to be enjoyed. Cool weather demands I turn up the oven and begin roasting, braising, and stewing. Brilliantly orange organic carrots capture my attention. I am going to roast them in olive oil and honey, put them on a bed of greek yogurt with lemon, and finish them with zaatar, pomegranates, mind and parsley. This makes a wonderful side dish with a piece of grilled fish, but honestly, I think I’ll just eat it for dinner with a good glass of wine, mopping up the yogurt and olive oil with challah. Then I am off to bed.
Shabbat Shalom.
How was your week? How are you spending Shabbat? Let us know at #tweetyourshabbat! Everyone is welcome at this table! Come hungry.
Honey Roasted Carrots with greek yogurt, pomegranate and mint.
Eating vegetables should feel joyful – never like a chore. This dish is full of Israeli flourishes and packs a big flavor punch, but is easy and simple to put together.
3 bundles organic carrots ( they should be thin and sweet)
½ cup olive oil
Dash champagne vinegar
3 tablespoons honey, plus more for drizzling Flakey garlic salt from a grinder, or your favorite salt
2 tablespoons chopped mint
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
4 tablespoons pomegranates seeds
2 cups of good quality whole fat yogurt
2 tablespoons zaatar
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Whisk together olive oil, champagne vinegar, and honey. Oil a baking sheet, preferably one with sides like a jelly roll pan.
Look at these carrots! They should be pretty and skinny and come with tops. Cut the tops down till they are about an inch long. Wash well. Toss with oil, honey and vinegar and lay them out on the baking sheet in a single layer. I know you don’t want to do more than one dish – I get it I don’t either, but if you stack them they will steam instead of roast and that lovely roasted carrot flavor will be lost. Drizzle them with more honey, about another two tablespoons worth, and grind that flakey garlic salt or whatever flakey salt you like all over – season heavily.
Roast the carrots for 30 to 40 minutes — you want them to be fork-tender, but not mushy.
Spread the Greek yogurt on a serving platter. Please use whole fat, or the dish won’t work, you want that rich, tangy creaminess and it’s what makes the dish hearty enough if you want it to be a vegetarian main course. Spread the yogurt all over the platter, use the back of a teaspoon to make pretty swoops and curls up and down. Take a few tablespoons of the carrot just from the baking sheet and drizzle. Take 2 tablespoons of zaatar and spread over the bottom.
Wait till the carrots are cool, or you might mess up the texture of the yogurt. Pile the carrots around the center of the platter, leaving those pretty yogurt swirls around the edges. Garnish with herbs and pomegranate.
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