Carrot Soup

Not too long ago one of my colleagues and I were having our standard morning conversation about food and what we have been cooking lately. During the conversation, he got pretty darn excited about a carrot soup he had just recently made. I mean, he kept going on and on about how great it was, and how simple it was to make. Bingo. After asking him what he threw into the soup. I decided that I had everything already on hand, and would make this simple carrot soup.

At first when you hear carrot soup, you are probably like most people, and say “no thanks, I’ll pass”. But do not pass this one up. Sure, it does not look like anything special, but after I made it, and both my wife consumed it over the course of a few days (yes, it is that good), every slurp of that soup was ended by either one of us, or both, saying things like “oh my”, “oh my gosh”, and “wow”. I kid you not, this soup is so simple to make, and is just packed with great flavor, and heck, it is good for you to boot.

Let’s get started.

Ingredients:

• 2 large yellow onions, diced
• 2 pounds of carrots, peeled, and roughly chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 6 cups of chicken stock (or vegetable)
• 2 tbsp fresh ginger, grated
• 1 cup of heavy cream (or 2% milk will work just fine)
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cracked black pepper
• Crushed Pistachios (optional)

To your soup pot, add in the butter, toss in the onions, carrots, ginger, and garlic. See how easy so far? Sweat these down for about 8 minutes or so, then toss in the stock. Bring this to a boil, then cover, reduce the heat, and simmer for about 40 minutes, or until the carrots are nice and tender.

Now, if you have an hand blender, use it. If you do not, you are going to want to transfer your soup in batches to a blender, being ever so careful to place a towel and some of your force over the lid of the blender before making it into a puree.  Do this in batches, and return the carrot soup back to the soup pot.

Add in your salt, pepper, and heavy cream. Mix well, and let the soup come back up to temperature.

When you are ready to serve, simply ladle the soup into some bowls, and top with some of the crushed pistachio nuts. Now, get ready to start your engines and after your first spoonful, get ready to say “oh my gosh”. Enjoy.