Raw Carrot Soup - recipe

I just haven't eaten enough fresh live food this weekend, so I really couldn't face the thought of having a meal based on lamb tonight.  I had a raw soup recipe bookmarked that I've been wanting to try for a few days, and Simon didn't seem to mind the idea of raw soup for dinner. 

This is inspired by Uncooking 101's Creamy Garden Chowder recipe.  Thanks for the inspiration! 

My drizzling skills need some practice!


Raw Carrot Soup

for the soup
3 large organic carrots, peeled and chopped roughly (my chunks were about 2cm long)
3 stalks of celery in 4cm lengths
1 clove of garlic - use a small clove, or just 1/2 a clove (I used a really big one and it was seriously overpowering!)
1/2 red pepper
1/2 cup filtered water
1/8 cup olive oil
1 spring onion
1/8 t himalayan sea salt
for serving
extra olive oil for drizzling
baby tomatoes for garnish (or whatever you have on hand)
pepper for garnish

Throw all the soup ingredients in a blender (and I don't use a vitamix, just a good quality kitchen blender), and blend until smooth and slightly warmed - but not too much!

Pour into bowls, drizzle over olive oil, garnish, crack some pepper and serve!

Simon thought it would have been good chilled and with coriander.  I'll give that a go next time.  And yes, he completely cleaned up his serving and said he'd happily eat it again.

Leek & Potato Soup

Leeks are so cheap at the moment and I keep opening the vege bin to discover I still have more to cook!  So I read a few Leek & Potato soup recipes the other day and scrunched them altogether, took out the bacon (seriously - every single Leek & Pot. soup recipe I found online included bacon), and ended up with the following, which I served with a freshly cooked loaf of bread (thank you Edmonds for the whole-grain bread mix - too easy!)

Recipe
1 large leek
3 medium potatoes
butter
500ml chicken stock (I use Campbells)
pepper (& salt if you think you need it - I found there was plenty from the chicken stock)
1 C milk

Slice the leek into rings about 5mm wide.
Cook the potatoes in the chicken stock until tender.
Meanwhile, fry the leeks in the butter (or evoo if you prefer) until soft.
Don't drain the potatoes!  Use your potato masher and lightly crush them, while still in the stock.
Add the cooked leeks to the potato & stock mixture, season with pepper (again, add salt if it needs it, mine certainly didn't).
Add milk, reheat & serve.

Simple, easy, tasty.  What more could you ask for?

Carrot & Coriander Soup with Lentils & Lemon - recipe

We didn't have a lot in the fridge last night, but I knew I had a bunch of deliciously fragrant coriander waiting for me to find the right use for it. So after a late escape from work, I whipped up the following for dinner last night - and met with much approval and praise from Simon! (By the time I sat down to eat it my palate was completely stuffed, having tasted through the cooking process and burning my mouth at least twice. sigh.) I'm pretty confident it was damn good though. :-)


Ingredients
1 bunch fresh coriander, including stalks
1 onion
3 large carrots - peeled & grated
1 large kumara - peeled and chopped into about 8mm square chunks
water
1 lemon
Brown lentils (I was planning on using red, but only had brown in the end), about 1/2 cup I guess
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper

Instructions

• Finely chop the coriander stems, sauté these in olive oil until fragrant, remove & set aside.
• Finely chop onion, sauté in olive oil, add the carrots & kumara, stir, add water (750ml - 1 litre).
• I waited for it to start simmering before adding the well rinsed lentils. Season with salt & pepper. About 20 minutes later, add half of the coriander leaves.
• About 5 minutes before the lentils are cooked (which takes about 45 minutes - but I taste test rather than timing it), add the cooked coriander stems & juice of half the lemon.
• Check the lentils are cooked & serve. Top with the remainder of the coriander leaves and a slice of lemon. We had it with bread, but it wasn't really needed. Quite hearty enough with all those lentils!

Credits: for inspiration - I read this about a week ago, but didn't refer back to it until now!

Cooking - a rarity

I've got my cooking mojo back just a smidgen of late. Last night I made absolutely-delicious, brimming-over-with-goodness soup - chock full of veges, pulses and scrumminess. This morning I was a little late to work because I decided to soak some beans in preparation for making a batch of bean salad tonight. I must take photographs along the way this time and redo the recipe.

This batch of sloup*:

• thinly slice onion, fry off, add a couple of oxtail bones, brown, add water.
• add diced carrot, parsnip, kumara
• add chopped celery leaves and a few diced stalks for good measure
• boil, for ages
• remove oxtail bones, if there's any good meat on them, hack it off, cut it up, set it aside.
• carefully semi-blend the soup - don't lose all the chunks of vege, but make sure the celery leaves are unrecognisable. ;) I just used my stick blender straight in the pot and pulsed for less than a second each time.
  
• add the meat back in, add Soup mix (barley, lentils, split peas)
• boil, for even more ages than last time (ooh, and make sure there's enough water!)
• season. Cool. Refrigerate until required, or until you can't resist it any longer.
  
• reheat, consume with toast. Or on it's own.

* SLOUP: not a spelling mistake, rather an indication that this is a cross between a sludge and a soup - ie its really very very thick and hearty.

WARNING: when you taste this before the cool, refrigerate step, try not to blister the roof of your mouth.
Ooh, another WARNING - if you're cutting up the veges with a victorinox serrated knife, remember they are omnivourous and will not be sastified with the veges and are liable to take a chunk out of your thumb if you don't keep them under control. (gory details - DON'T KEEP READING IF YOU'RE SQUEAMISH!!!!!!: I felt every single serration going through the pad of my thumb). I'm fine. So's my thumb. This is why I keep sticking plasters in the kitchen.