The candy's all gone. Time for carrots?

Pickled carrots with turmeric have to be better for you than all those Reese's

This year for Halloween, we reprised our roles as the Baby Shark family. Instead of trick-or-treating, we hid candy around the house for Jagger to find. He’s obsessed with gummy bears but not really into chocolate yet. Which meant more of the good stuff for mommy and daddy shark.

And then this election week-that-lasted-a-month happened, stress snacking ensued, and now our candy bowl is empty.

I try not to let myself feel too guilty for gorging on junk food now and then. I’d rather focus on trying to do better the next day. Same goes for Jagger, who some days refuses to eat anything but, like, gummy bears and peanut butter puffs. It’s easy to beat ourselves up on those days when his diet is less than nutritious. But we have to remind ourselves that he often bounces back the next day, enthusiastically devouring chicken and rice, veggie omelets, and turkey sandwiches.

So the candy’s gone. And here’s a way to try to eat better tomorrow:

Carrot bebes.

We pulled our French baby carrots from the garden this week! About 3-4 inches, these little guys are super sweet and crisp. (Hard to believe just under two months ago they looked like this.)

We ate some of them as-is in salads this week, and I chopped the carrot tops and added them to a chicken stir-fry. For the next bunch of carrots we pull, I’m using them in a batch of my favorite pickles ever: The Israeli pickles from Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook’s Zahav cookbook (here’s a slightly modified recipe from Food & Wine). The balance of salt, tang, and crunch is just right, and the addition of turmeric brings a lovely golden hue and earthy warmth.

Jags helping with the carrot harvest.

Have a restful weekend. And if you also overdid it on the candy this week, don’t beat yourself up. You’ll do better tomorrow.