Adventures with Purple Carrots

So, I bought a bag of locally produced heirloom carrots last week and was totally pleased with myself because, not only were they local AND heirloom AND organic, but they were also cheaper than a standard bag.

Inside the bag were three different kinds of carrots, a dark orange-red variety (can you tell I've little experience with heirloom varieties?), a purple one and a pale yellow carrot.

before peeling

all peeled up

 While I was making carrot kinpira this week, I decided I wanted to try it with a mixture of all three carrot varieties. It had the makings of pure awesome.

In my head, all I could see was the rainbow.

Totally pretty, huh? I mean, how often do you get to eat purple vegetables?

Doesn't it look somewhat freakish?

So, here's what I realized with this whole cooking experiment: the minute you throw a purple carrot into anything, prepare yourself to eat a whole lot of purple.

The kinpira ceased to have any colour other than purple.

Not only were the all the carrots purple post cooking, but my fingers were stained purple and a section of the couch where my husband dropped a sliver of carrot is also purple.

We sprayed the slip cover with stain remover. It's not coming out.

Moral of the story: treat purple carrots as you would beets. With respect. And wearing gloves if you don't want to walk around with purple fingers for two days.