A grey misty day calls for watching 1950’s films and baking carrot cake muffins. But once the carrot cake muffins are baked, they like to seduce me. They call me every hour insisting I devour their sweet spiciness. Sometimes I can resist but it’s only a matter of time before I’ve consumed them all!

Like any obsessive relationship, we’ve had to take a hiatus. We’ll return to each other when we can have a more balanced and kind relationship.

In the interim, I can put the carrots to better use – roasted and caramelized, then tossed into a warmed fall vegetable salad. Paired with cauliflower, fennel, peppers and onion this is a much lighter take on the traditional root vegetable salad. The vegetables are roasted in orange juice to help bring out their natural sweetness.

The yellow pigment in the vegetables represents a spectrum of carotenoids. These are antioxidants which fight off damaging free-radicals in the lipid-space of our cells. That means more beautiful skin, more vibrancy and a faster brain.

Had I chosen the sugar-soaked carrot muffins, I would have inflamed my skin, slowed my brain function and fallen into a carb-induced coma. Carrots for roasted vegetable salads please!