For several years I was active at the local, regional and national levels of a service organization known as Junior Auxiliary. I learned a lot about my community, about volunteerism, about organization and about leadership. Locally, our group sponsored many very worthwhile service projects that benefitted the children in our community. One of those was a project called “Kids on the Block” that used puppets to talk with elementary students about kids with disabilities. We took that program to all of the elementary classrooms in our area. It was very well received. When the opportunity came, the project was nominated for a national recognition, The Martha Wise Award, which was given to the most creative, original new project for the year. Our chapter was priviledged to win that year. A couple of years later I served on the NAJA Board of Directors with Martha Wise. That was a real experience! She WAS Junior Auxiliary having served as its Executive Director for more years that I can remember. It was her life basically. One time when we were in Greenville, Mississippi for a Board meeting, Martha served us lunch for which she prepared this carrot dish. She was gracious to share the recipe. Because it is somewhat different, can be finished ahead of time, and is easily prepared, I have used it often. Sometimes I use it as a vegetable side dish; other times, I work it into a salad preparation. Now that Green Goddess dressing is trendy and available again, I will be making it soon. I hope you will give it a try.

Dilled Carrots
Cook two packages of carrots, drain and slice into matchsticks about three inches in length. Marinate for at 24 hours with this mixture:

1 cup grated onion
1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
1/3 cup Green Goddess salad dressing
1/3 cup Italian salad dressing
1 teaspoon dill seeds
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 teaspoon ground black pepper