Carrot Ginger Soup with roasted veggies

This soup recipe came from one of the local cookbooks I picked up at the thrift store a couple weeks back--a Junior League Cookbook focused on seasonal appropriate foods. With spring in the air, I wanted to make something to celebrate the wonderful weather and something from a local cookbook designed for the season seemed even more perfect.While these are not to my knowledge local carrots, we do have winter carrots coming on nowish.

Ingredients:

1 large onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 tbs light butter
2 lbs carrots
1 tbs grated fresh ginger
4 c vegetable stock
1 tsp salt
1 tsp white pepper
1/2 c lite coconut milk

I actually only made two small changes to this recipe--reduced the amount of broth used and replaced the optional half-and-half with coconut milk. The first step is to prep everything--peel onion, carrots, garlic, and ginger. Dice the garlic and onion, chop the carrots, grate the ginger. I've learned that having the food all prepped before hand really makes it come together quicker, and prevents things from overcooking.



I put my dutch oven on medium heat and melted the butter, then dropped the onions and garlic on to saute. Once they'd started to soften, I added the ginger, pepper, salt, and all the carrots. This sautes for a while, which gave me time to get the broth going. I made it up using better than bullion--so the water needed to come to boil. Once that was made up, I poured it into the sauteed veggies. This cooks down until the carrots are very tender. Then I use my stick blender to puree it, adding in the coconut milk at the end.


The white pepper is very strong, so if you don't like a lot of heat you might add half as much and adjust to taste. I like the heat, but found it best with some coconut milk to cut it. I served this topped with some asparagus and baby bok choy I roasted in lemon with white pepper and ginger. And a nice slice of homemade whole wheat bread to go along with it.

The Verdict:

This is a simple yet very flavorful soup, that is very healthy and satisfying. The white pepper and fresh ginger are a little strong, but I like a soup with assertive flavors. If I were to make this for work, I would reduce both seasonings and have more coconut milk for people to add if it were still too strong. This would be a good soup for a cold as the ginger will clear your sinus' out. The recipe says it could be served chilled or hot.