Easy Creamy Carrot Soup

• 1 pound of carrots, peeled and sliced
• 2 cups of chicken stock
• 1 cup of half and half
• 1/8 tsp red cayenne pepper (optional)

This will make two average-sized bowls, or four small appetizer-sized bowls.  Double or triple ingredients as needed to accommodate the amount of people you're serving.

Start with 1 pound of carrots.  Peel and chop them.

Add the carrots and 2 cups of chicken stock to a small saucepan.  Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover.  Allow the carrots to simmer in the stock until they are cooked and soft, about 20-30 minutes.  They should break apart easily when poked with a fork.

Once the carrots are cooked and soft, strain them over a bowl.  Catch the extra chicken stock in a bowl and set aside.  

Now you need to mash or blend the carrots.  I used my food processor with great success, but if you don't have one then you can try a blender, or even mash by hand with a potato masher.  Try to get as many chunks out as possible for a smooth soup.

Basically baby food, right? Haha

Now transfer the mashed carrots back into the saucepan and pour the chicken stock that you set aside back in.  Stir well and let simmer for about 10 minutes.  Pour the half-and-half in and again stir well.  Add the optional cayenne pepper now, if you want some spice.  Continue stirring slowly until the soup is good and hot, then pour into bowls and serve!

Butternut Squash Ginger Carrot Soup

I found a recipe for a carrot ginger soup, which sounded phenomenal to me, but I also had this big butternut squash lurking around my kitchen, begging to be used before it went bad.  I decided to try incorporating it into this soup by halving the amount of carrots and replacing it with butternut squash.  Since butternut squash doesn't have a very distinct flavor on it's own, you definitely just taste the carrot.  Or in my case, because I doubled the amount of ginger, you just taste ginger.  A mouthful of exploding ginger.

Chop, chop, chop.

Two cups carrots, two cups butternut squash.

Home made vegetable stock.

The recipe calls for vegetable stock, which I had previously never made before because I had no idea how remarkably easy it is.  You can follow these directions here, but basically: buy a bunch of random vegetables (I used celery, carrots, spinach, broccoli, onions and mushrooms) and simmer them in a pot of water for an hour.  Salvage the broth.  YOU'RE DONE.  There's really no need to buy veggie stock from the store.

The recipe also called for fresh ginger, fresh squeezed orange juice, and rolled oats.

If you're wondering if a tablespoon of ginger is enough: IT IS.  I used two tablespoons and my mouth was on fire with ginger.

Once all the ingredients had simmered on the stove for awhile, I poured it all into a food processor.

And the result is a creamy, smooth carrot-ginger soup!

I do like the soup, but I really did use too much ginger, so it was kind of overwhelming for my taste buds. :)

Chicken Soup & Jalapeno Cheddar Cornbread

I'm focusing on dinners this week.  By that I mean, I'm trying really hard to actually plan and cook meals, rather than throwing something together every night.

Last night was home made chicken soup and jalapeno cheddar cornbread.

The chicken soup is a little bit of a process, but the results are delicious.  I stick a whole organic chicken + water in a crock pot until the meat is falling off the bones, about 12 hours.  I salvage the broth in a jar, seperate all the meat from the bones, then stick the bones back in the crock pot and cover with water.  I let the bones simmer for about 6 hours, which results in some seriously flavorful and nutritious bone broth.  I then remove the bones and discard, combine the two broths, and then let the chicken & chopped vegetables simmer in it for awhile (since my husband doesn't like vegetables, I kindly left them out this time).  For myself, I scooped out some chicken and broth as is, but for my husband and kids, I added pasta and let simmer until cooked (about 5-8 minutes).  It's a bit of a long process, but the amount of work I actually do is minimal.

I shared the soup with a friend unaware that chicken soup is his favorite food.  When I told him that it was nothing but water, chicken and salt, he was really surprised by how much flavor there was for such simplicity.  He said, "Trust me, it's really good."

The recipe for the cornbread can be found right here.  I ommited the scallions (for husband's sake) and used unbleached white flour.  I thought it was pretty tasty - it was moist, rich, fluffy, and kind of reminded me of the texture of eating cake, but without the sweetness.  My husband wasn't too fond of it. :(