Carrot Soup with Harissa

Dear Friends,


Sorry for the lack of posting.  The lack of sun in the winter after work and bad lighting in our kitchen means I have been taking less than stellar food photos and I have been reluctant to share them.  But I figured at this point my blog is dying a slow painful death, and maybe you're not all food photo snobs and maybe you're just interested in what's being served up for dinner around here lately.


So if that's the case, let me share this little soup recipe with ya... It's from my favorite cookbook, yes yes you guess it, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone!  Ha I need to branch out...

Carrot Soup with Harissa

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 Tablespoons chopped parsley
• 3 Tablespoons white rice
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• Salt and pepper
• 7 cups water or Veggie stock

In a soup pot, melt the butter over medium heat and add the onion, carrots, bay leaf, parsley and rice.  Stir frequently, until the onion is soft.  Then add the spices, 1/2 teaspoon salt and some pepper and cook for about 5 more minutes.  Add the stock or water (I just used some stock cubes to be honest), bring to a boil, and simmer for 25 minutes.  

Use an immersion blender to puree the soup to the desired consistency.  Seriously if you don't have an immersion blender, get one.  They make pureeing soups a lot less messy and less of a hassle.  

I picked up some store bought Harissa paste, which is a spicy condiment you can find at the grocery store, probably in the ethnic section.  

The addition of Harissa takes the soup from a mediocre soup to the most perfect carrot soup I have ever tasted.  It plays nicely on the sweet flavor of the carrots, while really adding that extra zing to make it sing!  There is certainly something about this sunny little concoction that is helping me fight off these February blues.  The best bit is the soup is freezable, so I highly recommend making as much as possible and freezing it for a quick, easy and healthy week night meal.  Note : this recipe makes 4-6 servings.  

In unfood related news, Heidi has eaten 3 important pairs of shoes in the past 2 weeks and my H20 audio device.  (I highly recommend them for any of you swimmers.) I'll admit I cried two out of the four times I caught her.   In the year that we have had her she has always stuck to only chewing her bones, now she seems to be seeking revenge against me for starting work.  Anyone have any tips?  She is doing this very sneakily while we are home. 

Braised Leeks with Creamy Mustard Vinaigrette

Hey Friends!  Luckily for my silly ego not everything I made yesterday was a complete flop like my mallows.  I made this warm veggie dish with mustard vinaigrette that was pretty tasty and healthy, thanks to Deborah Madison and her fab cookbook that I seem to keep coming back to.  

Ingredients for the Veggies

• 5 Leeks
• 2 carrots
• 1 stalk of celery
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 bouquet garni (basically just a bundle of herbs, but you can buy them in teabag form if you're lazy like me)

Trim the dark green bits and the ends off the leeks and cut in half.  Slice carrots and celery thinly.  Throw everything in a large pot and bring to a boil, cooking for 15-25 minutes until everything is tender.  

Meanwhile, you can whip up this awesome dressing.

Ingredients

• Juice of one lemon
• 2 shallots, finely diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3 tablespoons capers
• The recipe calls for these too but we didn't have them...
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley 
• 2 tablespoons chopped chives

Since we started getting all our veggies from an organic farm delivery scheme, sometimes we don't know what we're getting and sometimes we get stuff that we just wouldn't ordinarily use.  I find that things like celery and carrots are always the last to go as I never know what to do with them.  But they tasted great in this dish.  I have to tell you that the outermost layer of the leeks was a little tough, but I am a VERY impatient cook (it's my tragic flaw - well one of them anyways) so it's probably my fault.  The dressing was definitely the shining star of this and you could pretty much put it on anything and I think it would make it taste good.  It would be excellent for a potato salad to take on a little spring picnic!