Waste not, want not: carrot soup

Because I've been working full time on supply cover and haven't had time or energy to cook from scratch, I've ended up with a fridge drawer of going off veg.  Not good.

I had a bag of carrots.  Quite a big bag too.  Every carrot was going manky with black bits over.  Uh-oh, bin ahoy, thought I but I checked one to see.  Underneath the mank there was perfectly good carrot.  I peeled and cut out bits, rinsed very well and ended up with about three quarters of carrot that was perfectly usable.

Most has now been blanched and open frozen with Christmas roasted veg in mind.  The rest made soup, just like the broccoli soup from the other day - more or less the same ingredients, just different main veg, very different flavour.  Really delicious, in fact, and I'm not a fan of fancy carrot soups

Ingredients to make two or three servings depending on how hungry you are.  It made three for me.
All ingredients are flexible in quantity.  I find if I add enough water to cover however much veg I use in the saucepan, it makes a soup that can be thickened with a bit of instant mash perfectly
1 smallish onion, peeled and roughly chopped
A sploosh of oil
a squish of garlic puree
a grating of nutmeg (nutmeg improves just about every soup)
A grating of black pepper (not too much)
A medium pinch of garam masala
Some chopped carrots
A chicken stock pot
Boiling water
Instant mash
Seasonings

Method:
Thermo way
Put the oil and onion in the bowl and saute on 100, speed 2 for 5 mins
Add the garlic, nutmeg, carrot, garam masala, stock pot, pepper and enough water to cover (it came to just over the 1 litre mark)
Cook on 100, speed 2 for 15 mins by which time the carrots should be soft.
Zizz on 10 for 1 min until it is lovely and smooth.
Add one and a half  heaped tbsp instant mash and briefly pulse.  Taste, re-season if needed.  I added a pinch of salt.
Serve piping hot with some crusty bread and maybe a dollop of creme fraiche or yogurt on the top.

The hob way
Soften the onion in a little oil.  Add the garlic, nutmeg, garam masala, carrots, pepper, stock pot and boiling water to total around 1 litre altogether.
Bring to a boil, covered, and simmer until the carrots are soft.
Zizz in a blender or with a stick blender until smooth.
Add one and a half  heaped tbsp instant mash and mix in well.  Taste and adjust seasoning if required.
Serve piping hot with some crusty bread and maybe a dollop of creme fraiche or yogurt on the top.

Frugal fun: Jack Monroe's carrot, cumin and kidney bean burgers

In the interests of using up what's in the freezer as well as making sure there's a selection of vegetarian options for my daughter when she comes round, I thawed out three containers of home cooked kidney beans and made what has become Jack Monroes 'signature' recipe - or one of them anyway.  It really is remarkably simple to make and quite delicious too!

As always, I changed something.   I used a lot more beans that the recipe requires but didn't really change the rest.  Perhaps I used a bit more carrot, I'm not sure.  Also, instead of mashing everything down I used Thermione, which gave a smoother texture although I was careful not to completely puree it.  A stick blender or other type of zizzer would do just as well.  Finally, I left the mixture overnight in the fridge and I think that helped the flavours to develop.

The outcome was seven really decent sized burgers which I open froze before bagging.  One would be fine in a bap with the trimmings or two if eaten as part of a main meal without bap, etc.

I won't reproduce the recipe here but here's the link and a photo borrowed from Jack's site.  Well worth making!

http://agirlcalledjack.com/2015/01/31/carrot-cumin-kidney-bean-burger-9p/