I’ve got a bunch of carrots in my garden that are over due for picking and thought a soup would be a good way to use them up. I coincidentally got an email from Blendtec today with a carrot soup recipe and was my inspiration for this recipe.
I normally make my own broths and stocks but I received a box of Aneto chicken broth from the swag suite at the International Food Blogger Conference (IFBC) so thought it would be perfect for this recipe. Aneto is all natural and doesn’t contain any MSG or unrecognizable, hard to pronounce ingredients like many others do. Ingredient list only contains water, chicken, onion, carrot, leek, cabbage, celery and marine salt. This is stuff I would use to make my own broth and tastes just as good. Another thing I got from Aneto on the first night of IFBC is a nice personalized apron with my blog name on it.
Another item I picked up at IFBC was one of my favorite olive oils, California Olive Ranch. It’s my go to olive oil and almost always have a bottle of it on hand. California Olive Ranch was at IFBC in 2013 too and did an olive oil tasting that opened my eyes to what makes a good and a bad olive oil and how to taste the difference. Olive oils don’t age very well so it’s important to get the freshest bottles you can and store them in a dark cool place. You always know what you’re getting with California Olive Ranch because they put the olive harvest date right on the bottle so you know how fresh it is. I wish all olive oils had dates like that. It’s just something to look out for when you’re olive oil shopping. Most olive oils are imported from Italy so it’s nice to know there is a good olive oil made right here in the US with olives grown in California.
Recipe: Garden Carrot Soup
Yield: 6 Cups
Total Time: approximately 1.5 hours
Ingredients:
- 4 cups peeled carrots, chopped
- 1 apple, chopped
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 Tbsp rosemary, chopped
- 1.5 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 box Aneto chicken broth or 4 cups homemade chicken or vegetable broth
- 1 tsp thyme, dried
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
- 1/2 tsp celery seed
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 425ᵒF.
- Add chopped carrots, apple, onion and rosemary to a 9×13 baking dish and drizzle with olive oil.
- Bake until carrots are tender, approximately 45 minutes.
- Heat broth in a saucepan and add cooked vegetables, thyme, salt, pepper and celery seed. Simmer for 5 minutes.
- Pour half or less of mixture into a blender jar and blend until smooth. Empty into another container and blend the remaining mixture in one or more batches.
- Add additional salt and pepper to taste if needed.
- Sereve, topped with a fresh herb garnish of your choice.
Gapeys Grub 