Nick and I had one of my best friend’s Jamie, and her perfect-match fiance, Jeremy, over for dinner the other night. On the menu (after the Cabot Cheese and randomly selected by Nick sweet chocolate chip cheese ball appetizer) was a bowl of Carrot Soup served with garlic naan bread, and Slow Cooked Zesty Shredded Chicken (recipe coming soon!), Jamie’s delicious salad, and then for dessert Pumpkin Ice Cream with Coconut “whipped cream” (recipe coming soon). After we finished our meal Jamie said (no joke);
“Gina, when you told me the menu for tonight I really didn’t think it sounded good. I wasn’t excited“…. ok. “But, it was amazing!”.
Yeah, that’s right. To be honest, I knew everything was going to taste fantastic, but I was skeptical about the turnout of the carrot soup. I just wasn’t sure how something so simple could taste at all delicious. It did.
Simple Carrot Soup
Ingredients
- 2 T unsalted butter **
- 1 lb. carrots, grated on large holes of a box cutter (or added to a food processor and finely chopped)
- 2 T fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
- 1½ tsp. sea salt
- 4 cups of water
- .5 cup full fat coconut milk
- Extra sea salt and black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Melt butter in large saucepan over medium-low heat. Add carrots, ginger, and salt, and cook until carrots are just crisp-tender, about 8 minutes.
- Add water and coconut milk and bring to a boil. Reduce to a strong simmer and cook carrot mixture for 7 minutes.
- Working in batches (unless you have a large blender) blend the ingredients until smooth. Return to the saucepan and season with salt and pepper to taste. Rewarm the soup before serving
Notes
** This is a gluten-free recipe and can be made low FODMAPs by substituting the butter with trans-fat-free margarine (I like Smart Balance). If you aren’t really sensitive to lactose the butter should be fine (I used it and it didn’t both me). And of course, if you want to serve the soup with bread, choose a gluten-free (and non-garlic!) bread to suit the needs of both of these diet plans.
Nutrition Information
Serving size: ¼th of recipe Calories: 164 Fat: 11.2 g Saturated fat: 7.2 g Carbohydrates: 14.8 g Sugar: 6.5 g Sodium: 844 mg Fiber: 3.5 g Protein: 2 g Cholesterol: 15 mg
Nutrition Highlights: Under 200 calories, an excellent source of fiber, and vitamin A (~300% DV vitamin A, thanks to the carrots). If you want to reduce the calories and fat you can omit the coconut milk and use all water (the original recipe called for this), and if you want to reduce the sodium, just use 1 tsp. salt in the recipe (Along with the unsalted butter).
If you’re wondering what on Earth that white stuff is on top, it’s actually coconut “whipped cream”. Random, right? Well, there was coconut in the dish, so why not top it off with some coconut cream? You could also add some Greek yogurt on top too, for extra creaminess, but I can assure you neither the coconut nor Greek yogurt is needed to make this soup taste delicious. If, however, you want to make the coconut cream, here is how; take a can of full fat coconut milk, put it in the fridge to chill overnight, take it out, flip it upside down, open the can, pour out the liquid, and scrape out the solids at the bottom (there will probably be 1-2 Tbsp, at most). Add the solids to a chilled bowl and whip until a cream forms.
When we sat down to enjoy this soup, we were all slightly timid. We just didn’t know how it would taste. I’m almost certain that each of us ingested every last morsel of this soup (and I don’t know about the others, but I was really tempted to pick up my bowl and lick anything that remained).
And after sharing with you this culinary bowl of delight, I now want to announce the winner of last week’s FNCE Goodie Bag Giveaway!! The lucky winner is Cellebella, who wrote this to answer the question “Which booth at the Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo would you visit first?!”
And I would agree, the KIND bar booth was one that I probably stopped at about five times They have some new flavors and varieties coming out soon, so if you haven’t seen them yet, get excited! Cerebella, please e-mail me your home address and I’ll get this goodie bag sent your way ([email protected])!
Enjoy your Monday everyone.
