Moroccan Carrot Soup

Judging by most of our entries, healthy eating isn’t really our jam. I mean, pretty much every recipe so far has cheese as a main ingredient. And I don’t blame us. For me, eating a healthy dinner usually leads to having a healthy serving of ice cream later in the night. Healthy food just isn’t filling. But last night I decided to try this carrot soup from the latest issue of Bon Appetit, and let me tell you: not only is it healthy, but it’s also super tasty and incredibly filling. It’s the best of all worlds! Kristy, I think you may even be able to get Frank to eat this. Maybe.

Sidenote: if you don’t have a subscription to Bon Appetit, I highly recommend it. There are difficult recipes in there, sure, but there are also easy ones. And at the very least it will give you great ideas for new meals to try. It’s also pretty darn cheap.

I made just a few changes to the original recipe that I’m just going to write into this because I think they worked so well.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter

1 cup chopped white onion

1 pound large carrots, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch dice (about 2 2/3 cups)

2 1/2 cups low-salt chicken broth

1 teaspoon cumin

1 tablespoon honey

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

¼ teaspoon cayenne (optional)

Plain yogurt, stirred to loosen

Cream cheese

This makes either two meal-sized servings of soup, or four servings of appetizer sized bowls. First, melt the butter in a large saucepan medium-high heat. Slicing up the butter into smaller chunks helps it melt faster and more evenly. Then add the onion and sauté about two minutes. Add the broth (which is about 1 ½ cans) and the carrots, then bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes or until the carrots are fork-tender. Then, take the soup off the heat and transfer it to your blender. I used a ladle to get most of the carrots so they wouldn’t splash, then poured in the liquid. We were able to fit the whole batch in our blender, but don’t push it if it’s not fitting. You don’t want hot soup flying all over the kitchen!

Once it’s pureed and smooth return it to the pan over very low heat and whisk in the honey, lemon juice, and spices. I added the cayenne, which gave the soup a nice spicy kick. But I like things sort of spicy, so don’t do it if you have a sensitive tongue. I also added two heaping spoonfuls of plain yogurt. You could probably omit this, but it gives a little tang that’s nice. Now, the soup was tasting a little thin to me and Steve, so we decided to add about a half a brick (4oz) of cream cheese. Yes, it takes a little away from the pure healthiness, but only a little. It just makes it a little thicker and creamier. After the cream cheese is fully incorporated, it’s ready to eat! Salt and pepper it to taste and ladle it into bowls. You can serve with crusty bread or pita chips, but it’s also filling enough just on it’s own. This soup is pleasantly spicy, warming, and has plenty of depth. It’ll taste like you spent all day, but it really only takes about 45 minutes from start to finish. And it’s really cheap to make! I recommend you make it immediately. Go!


(Click here for printable recipe)