So today is one of those days... I'm miserable and weepy and lethargic. So, what to do? I made soup. The curried carrot soup was to use up the thousand little, little, tiny, deformed carrots that Norm dug up out of his garden and put in a bucket in the basement for me to deal with... so two hours of washing and scrubbing and trimming rotten spots away finally used them all up and yielded enough for a lovely big pot of soup. I used Rachel's recipe as a base, although Norm can't eat food that's spicy so I used a quarter of the recommended curry powder (I only have hot) and no cayenne or salt (the chicken bouillon cubes are salty enough). I also had no sour cream but I love the concept of the spider web and spider (see the recipe for explanation) for serving to kids or company!

Then I made my usual cream of broccoli with cheddar... it seems that most of the soups in the freezer have ham and beans, or lentils and pork hocks, or ham and lentils... we needed some lighter options. And since I'm on holidays till January I have lots of time to replenish our soup stocks!

Norm just got home from scouting for a Christmas tree with Dad... I get to pick the one I like tomorrow!

Curried Carrot Soup

Recipe courtesy Rachael Ray

Prep Time: 5 min
Inactive Prep Time:--
Cook Time:20 min

Level: Easy

Serves: Up to 6 (1 1/2 cup) servings

Ingredients

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan
2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 1/2 pounds packaged baby carrots, from produce section
6 cups chicken stock, available on soup aisle
1 tablespoon mild curry paste or 1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
Coarse salt
1 cup sour cream
Plastic condiment bottle or medium plastic food storage bag
6 blades fresh chives, cut into 1-inch pieces

Directions

Preheat medium pot over medium high heat. Add olive oil, butter, onions and carrots and saute 5 minutes. Add 4 cups chicken stock, curry and cayenne, and about 1 teaspoon salt to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover and cook until carrots are very tender, about 15 minutes. Place pot on a trivet next to food processor. Process soup in 2 or 3 small batches until soup is smooth and carrots are fully pureed. Transfer processed soup into a large bowl as you work to make room for more soup in the food processor. Return completed soup to the soup pot and place back over low heat. If the soup is too thick, add remaining stock, up to 2 cups, to achieve desired consistency. Adjust seasonings. Place sour cream in a plastic condiment squeeze bottle or into a medium food storage bag. Cut a very small hole in the corner of the bag with scissors. Ladle soup into bowls and squirt a swirl of sour cream around the bowl from the center out to the rim. Drag a toothpick from the center of the bowls out to the edges, forming a spider web design on soup. Pile a few pieces of cut chives at the center of each bowl to resemble green spiders in their webs! Cool!