How use carbon in Laravel 5.2 application-wide

Here's what I have on my helpers.php

function myCarbon($date)
{
  return $date != '' ? \Carbon\Carbon::parse($date) : '-';
}

Then on any controllers and views:

myCarbon($model->field)->format('F d, Y');

And since I usually have mm/dd/yyyy and mm/dd/yyyy H:i on my blades, I have these on my helper file:

function mydateFormat($date)
{
  return $date != '' ? myCarbon($date)->format('m/d/Y') : '-';
}

function mytimeFormat($date)
{
  return $date != '' ? myCarbon($date)->format('H:i') : '-';
}

function mydateTime($date)
{
  return $date != '' ? myCarbon($date)->format('m/d/Y H:i') : '-';
}

Now you can use this application-wide on any controllers and views.

(note: function names are sample only, not what actually I am using, change based on your need)