The Carrot Porridge Story

Carrot is one of the vegetables that can be called an universal vegetable. If one tries carrot can be grown in any part of the world. There are however many individuals who just barely use it because they do not know how to add it to the diet without just using it straight raw or boiled. This seemingly bland vegetable do have some sugar, and of such may be used as appetizer, main course a dessert and most recently discovered even as a cereal.

Recently I have discovered through a challenge given to my home economics students that carrots can be added as a breakfast treat. Because most of the students come from low economic strata it was a challenge to see some of the low cost recipes we could come up with using carrots to make nutritious dishes. We have come up with a number of different recipes. We had decided in one grade eight class that we would begin by using carrot in a drink and so students were asked to bring the ingredients. But for some reason, four weeks went by and only one girl brought nutmeg and vanilla.

Wanting to prick their imagination I said “let us make carrot porridge, you the class give the other ingredients like milk sugar and flour I will give the carrot.”That brought a number of sarcastic remarks from students. One boy said I don’t want to get poisoned. One said” I will get sick”. Another said” carrot can’t make porridge”. I said “let us try it .that is the only way we will know” So they bought the things and we proceed to make the porridge.

Students were divided into groups and each group given a specific task .One girl was assigned the duty of scribe, she was to make notes on the chalkboard of everything we did and the quantity of each ingredient used. We began by cleaning and grating our carrot. Then blended in water and put it to boil. We then thicken this with flour, added milk, vanilla and spice,. We sweetened and leave to simmer.

After 20 minutes it was ready for tasting. One girl tasted it first, she said “teacher it sell off, it tastes good man”. Pretty soon others were rushing to taste it. We removed the porridge from the fire and each student got a cup. They were so excited they rushed out to give teachers and other students a taste. Soon other teachers, security personnel, canteen and tuck shop workers almost every staff member was asking for the carrot porridge recipe. If you would like a copy also  just follow the link. Look out for more low cost carrot recipes