Carrot Pie

Looking into the refrig the other day, we see a limpy set of carrots lounging in their plastic bag still packaged up from when we bought them a week ago.  The best way to restore old veggies is to cook them. Pondering cooking options such as roasting, steaming, frying, baking, we turn to veggie-expert and vegetarian-cookbook pioneer Mollie Katzen of Moosewood Cookbook (1977) and The Enchanted Broccoli Forest (1982). There in her Enchanted Broccoli cookbook we found "Russian Carrot Pie" which is a unique casserole-type of dish with chopped carrots, cottage cheese, and a small amount of flour and bread crumbs as thickeners. The recipe also calls for fresh dill and mint, which we happily picked from our herb garden pots on our balcony. We substituted chives for the dill, which provided a nice oniony-flavor and is typically paired with carrots as well. Caution with the mint- we were a bit ambitious and added too much...

Russian Carrot Pie adapted from Mollie Katzen, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, p. 131
1 Tbs. butter
1 c. finely minced onion (we had celery instead, which worked great)
1 lb. carrots
2 cloves garlic, minced (we don't like garlic, so didn't use)
1 Tbs. unbleached white flour (we bumped up the ratio to 3 Tbs. whole wheat and omitted the bread crumbs)
3 Tbsp fine bread crumbs (we omitted and used more flour)
1 1/2 c cottage cheese
1 egg
freshly ground pepper and salt
3 Tbs minced fresh dill (we used chives)
2 Tbs. minced fresh mint

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Mollie suggests sauteeing the onion, but since we had celery instead, we pureed the celery and carrots together. Add the cottage cheese, egg, flour, and herbs into the food processor with the vegetables. Puree until just combined- some texture in the cottage cheese keeps it cheesy.
3. Spoon into a lightly-sprayed 9" glass pyrex dish. Molly tops it with a nut crust, but we didn't want to go to the trouble. Crushed saltines would work as well.
4. Bake for 30 minutes. Serve warm or cold. Great as a side dish for dinner or a light lunch with salad and toast. Or even as a change-up to the traditional picnic carrot-raisin salad.