carrot soup

Carrot soup is one of those things that can be very, very good – or horrid. I made a carrot soup a couple of weeks ago that was just divine.  Everything about it was a keeper.  The color.  The flavor.  The texture.  The subtleties of the herbs.  Even the most picky eater thought it was passable. It was such a hit that I wrote down the ‘recipe’.

Then I thought, “Oh, this is a kind of food blog, right?  So let’s post about carrot soup.”

Which meant of course that I had to make the soup.

Which turned out to be soup gone wrong.

Wrong color, wrong flavor, wrong texture.  And WAY too much dill.

“But I followed the recipe”,  I whined.  Or, did I?

The first digression was using bagged carrots from the store.  O.K., they were organic and everything but they had come an awfully long way from California.

(N.B.  Before you bust me for using alien carrots, know that my refrigerator is shared at times by other people.  The carrots were left there and so I used them.  Everything happens for a reason.)

So, bagged carrots vs. fresh from the ground.  This could account for the stale and somewhat woody taste of the yuk soup.  But I’ve had carrots fresh from the ground (specifically, mine) that tasted pretty bad.  Like dirt, actually.

What else went wrong?  Well, I made the mistake of thinking that more is better.  Of course we all know that isn’t the case but this seems to be a lesson that I learn over and over again.  This time I learned it with dill.

I seasoned the first batch of soup ever so gently with dill, creating a sensation more of smelling it than tasting it.  Next time around  I dumped a walloping palm full of it in. Not good.

Then I went rogue and garnished the soup with chopped bacon. I really have to apologize for teaming up perfectly good bacon with dilly carrots.

My brave family endures experimentation graciously and this was no exception.  We ate the soup but I knew in my heart that I needed to try this again.

They say third time’s a charm.  Today, as I was preparing my beautiful, fresh, locally grown carrots for the soup it occurred to me to taste them raw.  The orange and yellow carrots were incredibly sweet.  The purple ones tasted like fresh dirt.

My point being, if you wouldn’t eat the carrots raw, don’t even think about making soup out of them.

CREAMY CARROT QUINOA SOUP

For creamy carrot quinoa soup, start with carrots.

(seriously, taste them first – if they are not sweet and tender, try again later)

(oh, and the purple ones tasted like fresh dirt so I didn’t use them – besides, they would have made the soup purple)

• 1.5 pounds of carrots
• 1 large yellow onion
• 2 TBS Butter
• 4 cups of chicken stock
• 1/2 cup of cooked quinoa
• dill weed, just a pinch – a generous pinch
  
• 1/2 cup of heavy cream

Melt the butter in a large soup pot.  Chop the onions and saute them in the butter while you -

Wash, pare, and chop the carrots.

Add the carrots to the pot and pour in the stock.  Bring to a boil and then turn down to a simmer until the carrots are very soft.  This could take a while.  Carrots are stubborn that way.

When the carrots are soft, let the soup cool until you can safely pour it into a blender.

Pour it into a blender -

Add the quinoa and blend until smooth.

Pour the soup back into the pot and whisk in the heavy cream.

Now, judiciously add the dill.  I mean, just a sprinkle over the top of the soup for starters.  Taste it.  If you don’t get the dill right away, that’s a good thing.  Wait for it.  If it still isn’t there add a tad more.  You can always garnish with the dill if you want more.

You weren’t expecting quinoa?  Neither was I.  There I go again.