Carrots roasted on coffee beans

Last year, I saw this recipe for slow roasting carrots on coffee beans. We didn't get any coffee beans in the boxes last spring, so I didn't try it. However, this year we did get some whole beans.

I went through the carrots in the fridge to find the thinnest ones that I could find.

Peel the carrots, then toss them in olive oil, salt and pepper. I decided to skip the garlic that was listed in the recipe.

Measure out one cup of coffee beans.

Heat your pan for 5 minutes over medium heat, empty. Then turn off the heat and add the beans. Shake for three minutes.

Three minutes is a really long time....

Then put the carrots on the beans.

Roast them at 225 degrees for 2-3 hours. I took mine out around 2.5 hours, as I needed to cook my biscuits in a 400 degree oven.

I'm not really sure what I think about them. (For the husband, it was very clear. He did not like them at all.) I'd eat a small one and think, this is awful. But then I'd go back for another, thinking that the flavor was interesting. I did find myself thinking that I shouldn't eat many of them, given it was the evening and it tasted like I was having coffee. 

Overall, the coffee flavoring was too strong. If a similar thing were done at a modernist restaurant, the coffee taste would be much more subtle. There was nothing subtle about the coffee in this recipe.

I served them with vegetarian baked beans and parsnip biscuits. Husband added some country ham to his plate. The carrots definitely were better when eaten with the beans then when they were sampled on their own right out of the oven, probably because the beans provided a strong counterpart. That said, I still couldn't eat many of them, and I ended up composting many of the carrots. If you decide to try this recipe, I'd recommend trying it with just a few carrots, so that you don't waste them if you don't like the strong coffee flavor.