Whew! Things are about to get a lot more normal around here. Two days ago, on Saturday, we had a huge Girl Scouts event for which we have been preparing for months. We worked a full day on Saturday, so today (Monday) I am home. Yesterday, thank goodness, it was time for daylight savings. I don’t care so much about the extra hour of sleep as I do that it’s finally light again at 7 a.m. I have a really hard time waking up when it’s totally dark outside.

The part of the weekend where I wasn’t working was spent slowly getting back to normal. I’m reading “The Cuckoo’s Calling” finally, and of course I love it. JK can’t write more novels soon enough! I also worked on getting my photos organized – I’m in a weird place where I am nearly out of memory until we get a new hard drive in the mail – I’ve maxed out our computer and our external hard drives. I’m down to about 2 GB on SD cards! But the hard drive should be here next weekend. Hopefully I can make it through five days with 2 gigs (first world problems…).

After our big event being over, it feels like I have a bit of a fresh start. I bought a bunch of fun, seasonal ingredients at the store yesterday and I plan on spending today playing with my food and getting ahead on some seasonal recipes. This is one of them! We had some great root veggies with dill when we were out this weekend, and I wanted to play with the idea a little bit at home, thinking it would be a fun take on a Thanksgiving veggie dish. Oh, and I added yogurt sauce.

I am definitely on a yogurt sauce kick of late. So many things can be improved with a little tangy dairy, but not all tangy dairy is as delightfully (relatively) low calorie was plain yogurt (sour cream is 416 calories per cup. Plain yogurt is 149 calories per cup. Nonfat yogurt will slice off another 20 calories or so, but I don’t generally like nonfat versions of things – especially dairy).

Here’s what you need:
2 Tbsp. olive oil
5-6 carrots, cut into planks
4 large garlic cloves, minced
4 Tbsp. chopped fresh dill (do not use dried), divided in half
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 tsp. fresh lemon zest
1 tsp. lemon juice
Salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a wide skillet on medium heat and add the carrot planks. Put the lid on and sauté for about 7-12 minutes, tossing occasionally and adding the garlic about halfway through and 2 Tbsp. of the dill a minute or two before the end. This will get you to a doneness that still has a little bit of resistance to your bite – I recommend trying a carrot to see if you like how done it is. If you want it to be softer, just keep the lid on for 5-7 more minutes, until the carrots reach your preferred doneness.

While the carrots are cooking, stir together the yogurt, lemon zest, the other 2 Tbsp. of dill and the lemon juice. Salt and pepper the carrots, serve and spoon the yogurt sauce over top of them.