Carrot Soup

For the past week we’ve had beautiful, warm weather, but today the weather took a different turn. It started to rain last night and it has been raining off and on for most of the day today. With the temperature being only around 50 degrees, I thought that tonight would be a good night to make some soup.

A few years ago when I went to a friend’s house for dinner, she made a wonderful carrot soup that she served over some couscous. It was so good that I decided to try to make it tonight. The carrot soup recipe came from one of the original Moosewood cookbooks, and I was lucky to find the recipe online and I just altered a few things and cut the original recipe in half because I was just cooking for myself tonight.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups vegetable stock
1 pound carrots, peeled and chopped into about 1/2- to 1-inch pieces.
1/2 to 1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 tablespoon butter
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup chopped cashews
1 teaspoon each of thyme, basil, and ginger
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup prepared couscous
Optional additions: sour cream, plain yogurt, heavy cream

Directions:
1. Put stock, carrots, and salt in a pot and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. When you can pierce the carrots with a fork, turn off the heat and let it cool.
2. In a separate pan, saute the onions, garlic, cashews in butter until the onions soften. Add thyme, basil, and ginger and saute for a few more minutes. Add to pot with carrots and stock.
3. Prepare the couscous according to the package directions and set aside.
4. Puree the soup in a blender until you reach your desired consistency. You might have to work in batches. Add the pureed soup back to the pot and gently reheat on low. Add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Serve the soup on top of couscous.
6. Add any toppings you'd like or stir in some heavy cream. I chose sour cream.

The picture shows a pretty small bowl of soup, but, trust me, it was really filling and it definitely hit the spot on a chilly evening!

Raspberry Vinaigrette

In previous posts I talked about how I wanted to try to cook and make more things from scratch. Buying things straight from the grocery store is a wonderful convenience, and it is a convenience that I have indulged in and will continue to indulge in. But every now and then I want to control the ingredients that go into my food. Unless you buy foods that are all natural or organic you often put things into your body that you don't really need, things like high fructose corn syrup or all of those ingredients that you can't pronounce. I've realized that many of the things I buy are easier to make from scratch, and in some cases it's also cheaper. So far I've been successful with making my own croutons and I've had one success with making my own lentil vegetable soup. Tonight I tried to make my own raspberry vinaigrette for a spinach salad. I have to say that it was a success.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup (1/2 pint container) fresh raspberries
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons honey
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
3-4 tablespoons olive oil

Directions:
Put the raspberries, apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, salt, and pepper in a blender, food, processor, or mini-chopper and puree. Stream in olive oil and continue pureeing until smooth. If you don't have the equipment to puree the vinaigrette, put the raspberries in a bowl and mash with a fork, then whisk in the other ingredients. Adjust the seasonings as you see fit. I prefer my dressing on the sweet side, so I added more honey. If you prefer tangy dressing, cut back on the honey.

I put the vinaigrette on a spinach salad with toasted walnuts and goat cheese. It was delicious.

Spicebox French Toast

Recently one of my really good friends has been talking about a new whisky she discovered, Spicebox Whisky. I know of several brands of whisky but I have never heard of Spicebox, so naturally I was curious. I was fortunate to find it in a local liquor store, so I bought a bottle and had a sip (or several) later that evening. I was so happy that I decided to try it, because it is so delicious! It has a bit of sweetness to it, and it is incredibly smooth.

As the name suggests, this is a spiced whisky. There are a variety of spices in it, but what really comes through is vanilla. As I was drinking it, I suddenly realized that it would taste great in French toast. I've made French toast with rum before, but I just knew that the vanilla notes in the Spicebox would really enhance the French toast. I was so happy with how it turned out.

Since I made the French toast just for myself, I just threw the ingredients together for one portion. But here is a recipe that gives some measurements if you're cooking for a larger crowd. This makes about 4 servings.

Ingredients:
4 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup Spicebox Whisky
salt, just a pinch
8 slices of bread
butter
maple syrup

Directions:
1. Whisk the eggs, milk, whisky, and salt.
2. Dip the bread into the egg mixture and cook on a buttered skillet or griddle pan.
3. Top with maple syrup and any other toppings of your choice.

I didn't even remember to take a picture, but I can say that it looked good and it tasted delicious!

Lentil Vegetable Soup

One day at work a few weeks ago we had the unfortunate luck of losing water in our building. Apparently a water main broke and affected most of the office park. People in other companies seemed to go home once that happened, and considering the problem lasted for four hours, that was probably a good choice. We, however and foolishly, continued to keep working. People who had to use the restroom had two choices: they could either continue to use our broken bathrooms or they could drive to a gas station, grocery store, coffee shop, or home if they lived close enough. A co-worker and I decided to go to her house to both use the bathroom and to have lunch.

For lunch we had lentil and vegetable soup. The soup she made came straight out of a can but it was delicious, and naturally I started to wonder if it was something that I could make from scratch. I found a recipe in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, and, with a few adjustments, I made a batch. This soup yields about 4-6 servings.

Ingredients:
olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup dried lentils, rinsed
1 bay leaf
1 carrot, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
6 cups low sodium vegetable stock
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon cumin
salt
pepper

Directions:
1. Coat bottom of large soup or stock pot with olive oil and saute onions and garlic over medium heat until they soften. About 3 or 5 minutes.
2. Add lentils, bay leaf, carrot, celery, vegetable stock, tomatoes, and seasonings. Bring to a boil, then turn heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, until lentils are tender, about 30 minutes.
3. Remove bay leaf and serve.

The soup had a brownish-greenish color when I finished cooking it, but, trust me, it was very good. I was also surprised at how filling it was. I have a fast metabolism and I'm usually hungry again after a few hours, but this soup kept me filled up for a long time.