Carrot Soup with Garlic, Ginger & Curry

Cup of carrot soup

I love carrot soup! Laura hates it. But, I love carrot soup! I make it a lot because she grows a lot of carrots, and even though we use them in everything from other soups, stews, vegan cheese sauce, side dishes and salads, we still have a surplus, which we will probably sell in future harvests. I usually have to eat it all myself, so I make small batches. If I happen to make too much I can usually find someone to take a jar of it.

Jarred carrot soup

I always make it different; sometimes a ginger-carrot, sometimes a garlic-carrot with cumin, or carrot-parsnip or whatever I happen to be in the mood for or have on hand. I happened to really love this one so I am blogging it for posterity. Never know, Alyssa or her children might be looking for a good carrot soup family recipe some far away day.

Recipe:

12 - 15 medium-sized carrots
1 or 1 1/2 boxes of vegetable broth
1/2 cup soy or cashew cream
1 onion or several small onions and/or shallots
1 bulb of garlic (or 2 small bulbs)
1" square piece of peeled fresh ginger
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp curry powder
Salt and pepper to taste
Pumpkin seeds for garnish

Carrots

After I peel the carrots I use the food processor to slice them up. Save tons of time. 

Garlic

Ginger

Onions and shallots

After everything is sliced, minced and chopped and starting with the onions and shallots, I start to sauté on medium-low heat in the oil (you can do a healthy sauté in veg broth if you're avoiding processed oil - which we should be) then add the carrots and ginger after a couple minutes. Stir around while they are cooking so they don't stick or start to brown. 

After about 6 minutes create a space on the bottom of the pan and scrape the garlic in the created area and sauté it in what's left of the oil. Let cook for about a minute or two on medium heat until aromatic, then add a box of veggie broth and the curry. Continue cooking until veggies are all soft.

Carrots, onions, shallots, garlic and ginger simmering

Add more veggie broth, if needed, to keep veggies covered until cooked and then transfer in batches to a blender or food processor and puree. Add veggie broth while pureeing if it seems too thick.

Carrot soup

Add back to stock pot and bring back to a simmer. Slowly add the cream while stirring then turn off the heat and serve with a sprinkle of pumpkin seeds. I always have a bowl right away and pour the rest into jars for lunches or to give to some lucky soup lover :)

Wild Rice & Pecan Stuffed Squash

Stuffed Squash

When you make food that turns out to be perfection, and didn't follow a recipe, it is imperative to blog that or at least write down what you did immediately.

Squash harvest

We have a bunch of squashes just recently harvested and Laura pointed out that some of them will keep a long time while others need to be used sooner, namely the Delicatas. I've been eyeing them up all weekend, and finally decided to stuff them with something yummy. And boy, did I ever! Check this out:

Ingredients/Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 and place a sheet of parchment on a baking sheet.

2 Delicata squash
1 tsp vegan butter
1 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tbsp tamari (or soy sauce)
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Cut the stems off the ends of the squash, cut lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Spread with the butter and place flesh-side-down on parchment. Bake for 10 minutes.

Set one of the squash halves aside.
Mix the syrup and tamari together.
Turn three squash halves over and brush the maple mixture over the flesh. Back in the oven for 10 more minutes. Toast the pecans next to them or on a separate pan during this time.

Stuffing:

1/4 cup long-grain white rice
1/4 cup wild rice
1 1/2 cups veggie broth

Bring to a boil then cover and simmer for 5 minutes, then turn off and leave covered for 30 minutes.

2 tsp vegan butter
1/2 onion, minced
1 carrot, diced finely
3 cloves of garlic, minced
Handful of dried sage leaves, crushed (should be about 2 Tbsp)

In a saucepan, saute the onion and carrot in 1 tsp butter until soft then add the garlic, remaining butter and sage and continue to saute until garlic begins to brown, about 3 minutes.

Remove the onion/carrot mixture from heat and add it to the rice along with:
1 cup veggie broth
1/4 cup craisins
1/2 cooked squash that was set aside (scoop from skin)

Heat on low about 5 minutes until the liquid is absorbed.

Remove the squash and pecans from the oven and mix the pecans into the stuffing. Add salt and pepper to the stuffing until it is seasoned to your preference. Scoop the stuffing into the three squash halves. Move oven rack up a notch and broil for about 7 - 10 minutes.

Stuffed Squash

Best thing ever.

Erin's Squash Soup

Soup and bread

2014 Squash Harvest

Vegan Squash Soup Recipe

Cut in half, de-seed and roast in roast pan in 1/2 inch to 1 inch of water about 40 minutes:

• 1 Buttercup Squash – you can substitute Butternut, but it won't be as good. Trust me on this.

Saute until soft about 10 minutes:

• 1 Onion, Chopped
• 1 Granny Smith Apple, peeled, cored and chopped
• 2 Tbsp Butter – the good kind
• ¼ Tsp Nutmeg
• ¼ Tsp Cinnamon
• ¼ Tsp Salt
• ¼ Tsp Pepper

Add to onion mixture:

• Cooked Squash
• 1 Box Vegetable Broth

Cook about 10 minutes until flavors meld. Cool and puree in food processor or blender. Add back to pot and add 1 cup of water; simmer 15 minutes. Remove from heat.

Slowly stir in:

• 2 cups cashew milk

Squash soup from homegrown buttercup squash

Stuffed Squash with Brown Butter Sage Sauce

Laura has been harvesting a lot of herbs from the garden so I couldn't resist using some of our yummy sage in a brown butter sage sauce. I particularly love it on squash, although I'm sure it's good on many other things.

Stuffed Squash

Squash Stuffers

I cut a buttercup squash in half and de-seeded and de-pulped it, leaving twin squash bowls, which I placed into the roast pan. I knew I was going to fill those bowls with something but didn't quite know what. I opened the pantry and surveyed our supplies; we keep a lot of grains on hand. I debated between lentils, barley and rice and finally settled on parboiled and wild rice. I cooked about a cup of rice with 2 cups of water uncovered until the water was absorbed, added some dried sage, then spooned it into the squash bowls, filling each about halfway. I then topped them up with water since it was still only half cooked. Finally, I added 4 cups of water to the roast pan and placed it into a 400 degree oven for about an hour. The rice came out perfectly cooked. But! I wasn't done flavoring this dish yet.

Brown Butter Sage Sauce

I added 1/4 cup of vegan butter to a small pot on the stove and cooked on medium until it began to foam. Then I added a couple pinches of dried sage, crumbling it between my fingers. The butter quickly deep-fries the sage until crisp and it only takes a minute. Drizzled over the squash and rice it is sooo amazing.

Rules Be Damned

We served the squash and rice with a couple other veggies, namely potatoes and green beans. I know, I know, so much starch. Who has rice and potatoes? Funny thing is, when you make a diet change as big as going vegan, you tend to throw old conventions out the window. Bye bye old conventions. And good riddance!! Because this was one of the most amazing meals ever.

Squash & Rice, Smashed Potatoes and Green Beans

Best Dinner Ever

Show-Stopping Taters

Oh, and the stuffed squash was probably only the second-most delicious thing on the plate. The green beans were ultra fresh and cooked to perfection, but the potatoes stole the show and deserve their very own blog post. Stay tuned for the Smashed Potatoes blog.

Garden Vegetable Soup

I love soup so much and when the ingredients are this fresh, I love it even more. So good!

Vegetable Soup

Homegrown Veggies

Most of the ingredients in our soup today were harvested from the garden!

Snow Peas

The peas are growing like crazy out there, and needed to be picked so we are trying to incorporate them into every meal we can. 

Snow Peas

Beans

The beans are just getting started, due to late planting, but there were enough today to throw into the soup. We used a few Royal Burgundy bush beans and some green beans.

Chopped Beans & Peas

Potatoes & Carrots

The carrots aren't big yet either and needed to be thinned out in order to bulk up, so we thinned them out and used the teeny carrots in the soup.

The potatoes are still small too, but we've been harvesting a few of them anyway. We harvested a red potato plant called "Chieftain" for the soup.

Carrots & Red Potatoes

Kale

Kale isn't one of our favorite veggies, but it's great in soup so we made sure to chop a few leaves for it today. 

Kale

Fresh Herbs

The herbs have been growing well all summer and we harvest them as often as needed, and dry as many as we can for winter. Last year's herb harvest lasted all winter and we are still using some of them from 2015 this summer. We harvested parsley, thyme and oregano for the soup.

Parsley, Thyme & Oregano

We still have a bag of store-bought onions so we left the ones we planted in the garden to keep growing while we use what we already have. 

Garden Vegetable Soup Recipe

1 box vegetable soup

2 cups garden vegetable cocktail

4 cups water

1/4 cup rice

1/2 cup red lentils

1/2 cup soup mix (contains barley, lentils & various grains)

Several sprigs of parsley, thyme and oregano

3 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Whatever vegetables in whatever amounts you want. I used:

• 2 small onions, chopped
• Handful of snow peas, trimmed and chopped
• Handful of green beans, trimmed and chopped
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 3 cups potatoes
• 1 1/2 cups kale

Directions

I started with sautéing the onion in 1/2 cup water, then added the carrots. Next, I poured the box of vegetable broth in and then added the dried ingredients (rice, barley, etc). From there you can start adding the potatoes, beans & peas, kale and herbs, timed according to what takes longer to cook. I added the vegetable cocktail at the end, then began seasoning with the salt and pepper, tasting with every pinch to make sure it's not over-seasoned.

There are no real rules for making soup, but for it to taste good, seasonings are key. Salt is usually desired, but if you need to go low-sodium, go heavy on herbs, pepper, etc.

Pot of Soup