Roasted Ginger-Orange Carrot Soup & a Roast Bison Sandwich
My sister is sick, so I made sippable soup. She likes the pureed orange gingery kind, made with sweet potatoes, carrots and red lentils. I’m trying to sip more of the stuff myself – partly because it’s like drinkable vitamins, and partly in an attempt to replace that afternoon coffee that I’ve always thought never affected me at night. But then I realized that perhaps other powers are at work when I jolt awake at 3am and lie there, trapped inside my brain, until just before the alarm goes off.
Although I’m inherently against the concept of New Year’s resolutions (in the sense that they’re easily broken, and thus dissolved), I nonetheless get reflective over the holidays and begin the year with boundless intentions to do more (and at the same time, less), be more (and again, less), experience more, read more, and eat better – mostly this comes about at this time of year because festivities grind to a halt, and I find myself needing to wean off of chocolate and sugar and bread and butter and cream. (Not entirely, but in lesser quantities.) I vow to have more dinner parties, eat more soup (translation: more vegetables in a format that necessitates slower eating), do more creative stuff (there is a bit of me that’s artsy and crafty, and I keep ignoring her), and get more sleep. Travel more, if I can manage it, and use up all that food in my pantry and freezer before buying more. I’ll start with more soup. It’s important to have achievable goals.
You can find roast bison in the Co-op deli – no sodium, no msg, no preservatives. Leaner than beef. Lots of protein and iron.
Roasted Ginger-Orange Carrot Soup
2 lbs. carrots, peeled (or scrubbed) and cut into 1” chunks
canola oil, for cooking
1 Tbsp. butter
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger
1 tsp. curry powder or paste
3-4 cups low-sodium chicken stock
1 cup orange juice
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 cup half & half or heavy cream (optional)Preheat the oven to 450°F. Spread the carrots out in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet and drizzle with oil; toss to coat well and roast for 20 minutes, until soft and starting to turn golden on the edges.
In a medium pot, heat a drizzle of oil with the butter over medium heat. When the foam subsides, add the onion and ginger and cook for 5 minutes, until the onions are soft. Add the curry powder, roasted carrots (scraping any flavourful browned bits from the pan), stock and orange juice and bring to a simmer. Cook for 15-20 minutes, until the vegetables are soft. Season with salt and pepper.
Remove from the heat and using a hand-held immersion blender, puree the soup right in the pot. (Alternatively, process it in a blender in batches until smooth.) Stir in the cream, if you’re using it, and serve hot. Serves 6.
January 05 2011 | soup | 17 Comments »
