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Cream of Carrot Soup

cream of carrot soup
Cream of Carrot Soup

I love carrots – after parsnips, they are my favorite root vegetable (apart from potatoes, sweet potatoes, and those kinds of tubers) to roast. Whenever I see crudités, I head for the carrots first. I’ve eaten more than my share of carrots at recital receptions, and I never tire of them. I do find packaged “baby carrots” to be a bit amusing – big carrots whittled down to become small carrots (I have no idea how they do it exactly). Actual baby carrots right out of the ground are a totally different creature and are sweet like candy.

I made a carrot cake the other day, from Heidi Swanson’s 101 Cookbooks site. It’s a wonderful cake, very earthy and sweetened with bananas and dates – there’s no refined sugar (or unrefined sugar, actually – it’s just fruit sweetened) in this carrot cake. It’s one of my favorite things about this cake.

carrot cake
Carrot cake from 101 Cookbooks

I did make a maple syrup sweetened mascarpone frosting for it, but after tasting the whole shebang, I found it made the whole thing too sweet, so I scraped a lot of it off.  There’s only a thin layer now, and it’s perfect.

After I made this carrot cake, I had a bunch of carrots left over, so I decided to make soup out of them. I whipped up this cream of carrot soup the other day and it turned out to be simply amazing. It’s basically carrots and onions cooking in milk and then pureed. Cooking vegetables in milk and pureeing them is one of my base recipes – it works well with broccoli, cauliflower, root vegetables, and even dark leafy greens.

My bet is that one could make this dairy free by using homemade almond milk in place of the cow’s milk. Carrots and almonds go so well together. Maybe garnishing the soup with dukkah would be nice in that case, too!

Cream of Carrot Soup

1/4 white onion, preferably organic, chopped
carrots, preferably organic, washed and grated enough to make 1.5 cups
1 tbs unsalted grass-fed butter (I like using Kerrygold)
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
juice from 1/2 orange
1/2 tsp coarse sea salt/kosher salt
1/4 tsp Aleppo pepper/red pepper flakes
2 c. whole milk (mine is raw, but any kind of grass-fed milk would work just fine)
salt and pepper to taste
whole milk yogurt (I used raw yogurt, but regular whole milk yogurt would work, as would strained yogurt)
za’atar (optional, but delicious; fresh thyme leaves would be an alternative)

Melt butter in a medium saucepan, then add the chopped onion. Cook for a few minutes until softened, and add the grated carrots. Cook for a few minutes until they soften, too.

Add the olive oil and stir until combined. Squeeze half the juice of the orange (so, juice from 1/4 of an orange) onto the onions and carrots. Add salt and sprinkle on the Aleppo pepper.

Add the milk and combine everything in the pan together. Turn the heat down on low (do not let this mixture boil), put a lid on the pan, and simmer for 20-30 minutes until everything is soft. Note: you may have to place the lid on the pan at an angle if things are too hot, to let the steam out, and so as to not cause over-boiling (milk burns easily and smells terrible when it does).

Take the pan off the heat and blend everything in the pot with a stick blender (you could do this with a regular blender, too, but it’s just more work). Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Ladle into bowls and top with yogurt and za’atar (optional) to taste and squeeze a little more orange juice onto the soup.

Serves 1-2 people.

This post is participating in Real Food Wednesday hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

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Garden Update – Sprouts and Starts

This past week I started planting my greens in containers on the back deck.  They are easy to grow and they progress pretty quickly. The idea of having fresh greens right outside my back door is really appealing, too.

I’m happy to report that all my greens have sprouted! The thyme has also sprouted, and this year I’m determined to not let it fry in the sun. I am impressed and happy that leftover seeds from 2010 sprouted, too.  That would be the lettuces and braising mix that I got from the Hudson Valley Seed Library.

lettuce sprouts
Lettuce sprouts
braising mix sprouts
Braising mix sprouts
sylvetta arugula sprouts
Sylvetta arugula sprouts

Thyme sprouts are so cute!

thyme sprouts
Thyme sprouts

I’ve also got tomato starts and peppers that can go in the ground soon.  I am excited about eventually trying all these different peppers and tomatoes. Here’s hoping I have a bumper crop.

tomatoes and peppers
Silver fir and stupice tomato, and peppers

My garden plot downstairs is also doing well – I’ve got two tomato plants in there, and have direct sowed some basil seeds.  I also planted some “bees friend”, calendula, and borage.  I’m hopeful that this will bring me more bees to help pollinate!

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Queens Swap is Coming

One of the projects I’ve been working on is the Queens Swap, a food swap based in the borough of Queens, NYC. You may have heard about food swapping – this New York Times article talks about it, and this piece was one of the things that inspired me to start a food swap here in Queens. I asked my friends Judith and Charlene if they’d like to help organize it, and lo, the Queens Swap was born.

Basically, attendees will swap food for food and have fun while doing it. It’s exciting to think that a bottle of my vin d’orange or homemade vanilla extract could be traded for something equally artisanal and yummy.

Queens Swap is fortunate to be partnering with The Queens Kickshaw, a new cafe in Astoria that sells seriously kickass coffee and grilled cheese sandwiches (try the Gouda!). The owners, Ben and Jen, have put their heart and soul into this place, so it’s fitting that people will bring food they’ve put their heart and soul into as well.

Lively fun at the Queens Kickshaw (c) Meg Cotner

Now, what can you swap? Here’s the rundown: You can swap anything you want, but it must be made, grown, or foraged by you, personally. It also must be packaged appropriately (city food safety rules). More specifics can be found on the What to Swap page on the Queens Swap website.

We’ve set up an Eventbrite invitation to manage the event, and for this inaugural swap we are limiting it to 20 swappers. So, if you would like to attend, please register soon!  You can either click the link above or use the event widget in the sidebar.  And if you don’t make it into this swap, we plan to have another in July.

As of this writing, over half the tickets are already spoken for, so they are going quickly. It’s all very exciting!

You can also find the Queens Swap on Facebook and Twitter, as well as the swap website.

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Recent Life Changes

As you may have noticed, posting has been less frequent lately. There are lots or reasons for that, but most of them are boring, so I won’t elaborate. I will, however, share some recent news: I was laid off from my job on Thursday, April 21. The company reorganized, and my position as community manager was reorganized out in that process.

I’ve learned a lot since that day about accepting severance pay, processing paperwork for student loan deferment, and applying for unemployment insurance. It has been a little surreal, but I’m proud of myself for completing the process for each of them in a timely manner. I’m normally a paperwork hater, but I must admit – the paperwork I have had to do hasn’t been bad at all.

I am pretty happy to be given a chance to head out on a new path, too. It’s exciting thinking about what could be the next step for me. I really do not feel very stressed about it right now, either. In fact, I feel calmer than I have in a long time.  I attribute the almost non-existent stress levels to eating a nutrient-dense diet, and limiting sugar (more on that in a future post).

Now, since I’m not currently bringing any money in, I’ve already fallen back into old habits of frugality; when I was a freelancer several years ago I had to be extremely frugal. However, I don’t feel like I’m really wanting for much; I have an already rich, wonderful life!  Plus, it’s spring, which makes life seem overly joyous.

That all being said, I’ve decided that I am not going to scrimp on certain things – these include raw cow’s milk, raw yogurt, pastured eggs, and pastured meats. The meats I will buy a little less of, though, and go with some less expensive protein like organic beans (I love black beans especially). This may be the perfect time to explore cheaper organ meats, too. CSA season is starting up in about a month, too, so getting access excellent local, organic vegetables will not be an issue.

Needless to say, I’m looking for work, so if you have any leads, send ’em my way! I’m a creative person, a talented writer, a trained classical musician, and I would love to work on something that is going to benefit the world in a positive way.

Here’s to amazing changes coming my way! In the meantime, here’s a picture I took of the park near my home.

The trees are beautiful. New growth for both of us.
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Homemade Vanilla Extract

Last week I made vanilla extract.

It was something I’ve been wanting to make for some time now, and since I seem to be caught up in a DIY wave these days, I felt this was the right time to make it. Happily, everything fell into place – the vanilla beans I ordered arrived quickly, I found some quality alcohol, and a friend recently posted an excellent recipe for homemade vanilla extract.  I was totally set.

For a little while, I was trying to decide between using vodka or bourbon.  I’m more familiar with vodka in cocktails, mostly due to my interest in the Cosmopolitan (vodka, cranberry juice, triple sec, lime juice) in the 90s. I loved that drink, and still order it sometimes. The best one I ever had was made at Caffe Venezia in Berkeley – it was pink and beautiful and deliciously tangy (excessively sweet Comos are not my thing), and I sucked it down like a champ. It was also very strong, and it hit me shortly after I drained the glass. Thankfully, I ate soon after which helped keep the intoxication at bay (for a little while).

That being said, I recently had a bourbon-based cocktail the other day at The Astor Room‘s Beaver Bar. It was in a drink call the “New Yorker” (lemon juice, claret, bourbon), and it was delicious.  The bourbon had a kind of perfume to it that I enjoyed very much.  I thought it would be perfect for vanilla extract.

In the end, I used vodka because I bought a big bottle of it to make vin d’orange, and I had plenty extra.  On the recommendation of the man at the liquor store, I bought a bottle of Pinnacle Vodka.  It is made in France and “in small batches”, according to the label. I tasted it on its own and it has a nice flavor – sort of spicy, a little sweet, and relatively smooth but with that fiery alcohol kick.

The vanilla beans – Bourbon Madagascar – come from JR Mushrooms & Specialties (via Amazon) and were priced well.  I paid a little over $15 for a 1/4 pound, which yields about 27 beans. They came vacuum packed, are nice and soft and smell amazing.

I used six beans for the pint of extract I made.  I used the entire bean – I cut each one in half lengthwise and scraped out the seeds, reserved the pods, then covered it all with 2 cups of vodka.

The pint jar is sitting in a dark cupboard, steeping for the next 6 weeks. I looked at it yesterday and it had already gotten quite dark. However, it smelled pretty strong – more like alcohol than vanilla – but good. It will be amazing once the 6 weeks is up. Then I’ll bottle it and perhaps offer it at the inaugural Queens Swap (more details on that in another post).

I’ll write again when the vanilla extract is ready.  Can’t wait!

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The Simplest Mayonnaise Technique

Last summer, I came upon a curious way to make mayonnaise. Described on the Seeds of Nutrition blog, it sounded incredible – it promised smooth, creamy mayonnaise that didn’t involve any tedious drizzling of oil, and it utilized a stick blender put it all together. It also claimed to do it in a flash.  Whoa.

I watched the video of the process and was truly amazed. I promised myself I’d try it out. Finally, eight months later, I gave it a shot… and was fully impressed.  I will never make mayonnaise another way, if I can help it.

One of the reasons I was so impressed by this method is that it is painfully simple in both concept and execution. I’ve made mayo a couple other ways, and both had their pitfalls. The first time, I did it by hand; it turned out just fine, but it sure was tiring.  I remember taking a number of breaks during the process because at times my upper arm felt like it was on fire!

The second time I made mayonnaise was with a blender. I thought the opening in the top of the lid would allow me to easily drip in the oil while the blades were spinning, no fuss no muss. My distinct memory is of how much splatter there was – all over the cabinets, counter, and even on the floor.  In my hair. Not a pretty sight.

So, when I was putting together things for the fermentation workshop I recently taught, fermented mayo came to mind.  I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone by making it – trying out this new technique and expanding my fermentation repertoire.  Why ferment this mayonnaise?  To preserve it, if course!  Fermenting it with whey will extend its life into months rather than weeks. It turned out perfectly.

I chose to use the mayonnaise recipe in Nourishing Traditions. I used a 50/50 ratio of extra virgin olive oil and expeller-pressed sunflower oil.  I also used dijon mustard, fresh organic lemon juice, sea salt, 1 egg and 1 egg yolk.  Everything was at room temperature, too (this is crucial).

Essentially, you put the mustard, lemon juice, salt, and eggs in the bottom of the stick blender vessel.  Let that settle for a couple of minutes. Then pour in the oil. Plunge the stick blender into the vessel, make sure it’s flush with the bottom, then start the blender, a few pulses at first, then let it go and watch the mayonnaise form into a creamy consistency (as if by magic!). Be sure to incorporate all the oil into the mayo by slowly pulling up the blender through the mass.  This should take about 30 seconds to blend.

Here are the amounts for each element in the NT mayo recipe:

1 whole egg plus 1 egg yolk
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 1/2 tbs lemon juice
1 tbs whey
3/4-1 cup oil (a mix of extra virgin olive oil and expeller-pressed sunflower oil)
a generous pinch of sea salt

To ferment it, just cover it and leave it out for several hours (I left it out overnight, as I made it around 9 at night). Then refrigerate it.

I believe that you could use any mayonnaise recipe with this blending method – I’ve seen other mayonnaise recipes that utilize the stick blender, and use slightly different ingredients (addition of vinegar, different oils, etc.).

I’m so glad to have such an easy recipe.  It’s so quick to make, and I plan to use it in my favorite chicken salad recipe (instead of Hellman’s or Kraft, which contain oils I don’t want to consume).

I’d love to know how this method suits you when making mayonnaise, so please feel free to share in the comments or send me an email. Good luck!

This post is participating in Fight Back Friday hosted by Food Renegade.

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Lacto Fermented Ginger Carrots

Lacto fermented ginger carrots is one of my favorite ferments.  It’s got the sweetness of the carrots, the piquant nature of the ginger, and the tanginess that comes with fermented foods.  Plus all that extra vitamin C and probiotics from the fermentation process.

The jar of ginger carrots in the photo was made during a fermentation workshop I taught a couple of weeks ago.  I decided on ginger carrots because they are easy to make and get one’s head around – a few simple ingredients, easy to mix, and easy to get a brine out of it. It was fun to prepare them as a group, too, with everyone contributing to the grating and mincing. And I learned how to peel ginger with a spoon!  It’s freakishly effective.

I enjoy ginger carrots on lots of things, from eggs, to roast salmon, and it’s a nice snack all by itself. It also goes great in a bean salad, the recipe for which I’ll share soon

The process is very simple – mix everything together and let it sit and ferment.  The ferment shown in the picture above – which was made during the fermentation workshop I taught a few weeks ago – took about 6 days to get to my liking. It continues to get better and better as it ages, too.

Lacto Fermented Ginger Carrots
4 c. grated carrots
1 T ginger root
1T sea salt
4T whey

Grate carrots on the large holes in a box grater (or use a food processor).  Peel the ginger and mince it. Mix the carrots and ginger in a non-reactive bowl (glass or ceramic) until well-combined.

Add the sea salt and whey, and pound it all together to release the juices, which will turn into a brine.  Stuff  the mixture in a jar – a pint jar should fit it all. As you’re stuffing the carrot-ginger mixture in the jar, be sure to firmly press down to further help release the brine. When you’ve stuffed it all in the jar, be sure there is a brine covering the vegetables.

Cover with a lid and let it sit for a few days in a warm dark space.  Check it to see what it tastes like – if you like it the way it is, put it in the refrigerator.  If you want a stronger fermented flavor, leave it out and check it each day for progress.

Regarding the salt you use for your fermentation: you can also use kosher salt or other salt as long as it has no iodine and no anti-caking ingredients. One caution about Celtic or grey salt – moist salt is sometimes known for carrying bacteria and mold that can ruin your ferments.

Makes one pint.