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jenettMy body has declared that we have reached the season of All Dill All The Time. (One of my first personal signs of the coming of spring. I have no idea why, but it's true.)
So, I am making carrot dill soup. It has the benefit of being fairly low demand in the cooking, and freezing well. The same basic method can be used for lots of other vegetables and herb blends (I have plans to try it with beets, and with cauliflower - ok, there I'd add some cheese). And it'd do fine with parsnips or turnips or other root veggies, though you might want to adjust the roasting part.
[and now I want to go to the co-op and buy out their produce section.]
My normal method is fairly simple (and noted within). Today, however, I wanted to experiment.
I prefer thick soups: the slow cooker version described below is just about right for me: about a 3:2 ratio of veggies to stock to start with, which gets closer to 1:1 once I add half-and-half. You can thicken with potatoes, if you like, and some people use dried potato flakes for that.
My usual method:
- Cook up some diced onions and a little garlic in a little butter or olive oil, until translucent.
- Take some carrots (cut into roughly equal pieces to make cooking time easier.) Add a whole bunch of dried dill. (I go for "until you can say "Wow, that is indeed dill in there!" on visual inspection, which is to say, lots.)
- Cook them until soft in a little under an equal amount of chicken stock (this takes 30-60 minutes, but needs watching.)
- Apply immersion blender until smooth enough.
- Add enough half-and-half to change the color of the soup. Enjoy.
Today's method:
Ingredients:
- Two bags of Trader Joe's frozen yellow and orange carrots. 3.3 cups per bag, so 6.6 cups of carrots total. [1]
- Some olive oil (probably 3 TBS?)
- Box (32oz) of chicken stock (Free range, organic, from Trader Joe's) [2]
- Penzey's minced toasted dried onion and minced dried garlic [3]
- Dried dill (also from Penzey's)
- Half and half
Optional, but nice:
- A little lemon juice or a lemon. [4]
- If you were inclined and had it handy, you could replace a cup of stock with a cup of red wine. I firmly believe it improves soups, though I didn't have any handy today.
Tools
- Slow cooker with both high and low settings
- Stirring thing. (I use a spatula.)
- Immersion blender (You can use a regular blender, but that is tedious and requires waiting for the soup to cool a little and can get messy.)
Process
First: roast your veggies
- Pour a little olive oil into the bottom of slow cooker.
- Add both bags of frozen carrots. Drizzle a little more olive oil on the top.
- Cook on high until roasted, stirring every hour or two.
(At some point in the process, after the veggies have thawed and you have veggies-in-water, you will probably want to remove the lid for an hour to let the extra liquid cook off, if you want them actually roasted and brown, as opposed to just cooked. If you start with regular carrots you cut up yourself, they will a) roast faster and b) not have extra liquid.)
You could pause here, if you wanted, and do the rest another time. (Refridgerate or freeze your roast carrots before pausing, obviously.) You could also roast them in the oven instead: I usually aim at 45 minutes at about 350 degrees, adjusting until the right level of roasted.)
I find that non-frozen veggies usually roast in the slow cooker in 2-3 hours on high, and 4-5 hours on low, while frozen veggies add an hour or two, plus need the lid off for a bit once the ice has melted. They do need to be stirred occasionally (like once an hour) or you will end up with some very browned ones, and some not-browned-at-all ones, but other than that can be basically ignored, which is not something I do with the oven.
Next:
- Add your 4 cups of stock (or stock + wine) to the slow cooker and the carrots.
- Add your dried onion, garlic, and dill.
- Cover again, and let cook for a while, until flavors merge.
I put in about a generous handful of dried onion, a small pinch of garlic (a quarter tsp equals a clove, so this is about 2-3 cloves worth), and sprinkle dill across to cover the surface and be stirred in twice. You may want to adjust proportions, because I believe in onions and in dill and am profuse in their abundance.
This part is pretty time flexible: you could put it on low in the morning, and come home at night and it'd be just fine, or you can do it for 2-3 hours, which is also just fine.
If, like me, you did the 'roast the carrots' bit starting mid-morning, let them spend lunch with the lid off, and then roasted a bit more, before adding liquid, you cook them until you feel like having dinner.
When you are ready to eat
- Turn off the slow cooker
- Apply immersion blender until smooth enough. (I like leaving some chunks). Avoid splashing hot soup on yourself or your kitchen.
- Add enough half-and-half to change the color of the soup (probably 1-2 cups depending on your tastes.) Stir thoroughly.
- You may wish to add a bit of lemon juice and/or salt and/or pepper, depending on taste. (Stir, again.) I am a really firm believer in lemon juice improving many soups.
- Serve. You can add a little bit of sour cream if you like, or you could sprinkle dill on top as a garnish. Goes nicely with bread.
[1] You can, of course, start with regular long orange pointy carrots.
[2] You can also make your own stock, which I often do, but I don't currently have any on hand. Or you could use the jarred base stuff. Or whatever else you want to use to make stock happen.
If you make your own stock, you can control the salt content: most packaged stocks have a huge amount of sodium.
[3] If, like me, you live by yourself and do not cook with onions or garlic every day, these are both nice quick solutions. Or, if like me, you have limited energy, and want to use your cooking energy for other things than starting a meal by cooking onions and garlic and having to keep a close eye on them.
[4] Or half a lemon, if you have ones like the ones I got from Trader Joe's on Tuesday, which are these huge amazing things that produce juice after juice after juice.
So, I am making carrot dill soup. It has the benefit of being fairly low demand in the cooking, and freezing well. The same basic method can be used for lots of other vegetables and herb blends (I have plans to try it with beets, and with cauliflower - ok, there I'd add some cheese). And it'd do fine with parsnips or turnips or other root veggies, though you might want to adjust the roasting part.
[and now I want to go to the co-op and buy out their produce section.]
My normal method is fairly simple (and noted within). Today, however, I wanted to experiment.
I prefer thick soups: the slow cooker version described below is just about right for me: about a 3:2 ratio of veggies to stock to start with, which gets closer to 1:1 once I add half-and-half. You can thicken with potatoes, if you like, and some people use dried potato flakes for that.
My usual method:
- Cook up some diced onions and a little garlic in a little butter or olive oil, until translucent.
- Take some carrots (cut into roughly equal pieces to make cooking time easier.) Add a whole bunch of dried dill. (I go for "until you can say "Wow, that is indeed dill in there!" on visual inspection, which is to say, lots.)
- Cook them until soft in a little under an equal amount of chicken stock (this takes 30-60 minutes, but needs watching.)
- Apply immersion blender until smooth enough.
- Add enough half-and-half to change the color of the soup. Enjoy.
Today's method:
Ingredients:
- Two bags of Trader Joe's frozen yellow and orange carrots. 3.3 cups per bag, so 6.6 cups of carrots total. [1]
- Some olive oil (probably 3 TBS?)
- Box (32oz) of chicken stock (Free range, organic, from Trader Joe's) [2]
- Penzey's minced toasted dried onion and minced dried garlic [3]
- Dried dill (also from Penzey's)
- Half and half
Optional, but nice:
- A little lemon juice or a lemon. [4]
- If you were inclined and had it handy, you could replace a cup of stock with a cup of red wine. I firmly believe it improves soups, though I didn't have any handy today.
Tools
- Slow cooker with both high and low settings
- Stirring thing. (I use a spatula.)
- Immersion blender (You can use a regular blender, but that is tedious and requires waiting for the soup to cool a little and can get messy.)
Process
First: roast your veggies
- Pour a little olive oil into the bottom of slow cooker.
- Add both bags of frozen carrots. Drizzle a little more olive oil on the top.
- Cook on high until roasted, stirring every hour or two.
(At some point in the process, after the veggies have thawed and you have veggies-in-water, you will probably want to remove the lid for an hour to let the extra liquid cook off, if you want them actually roasted and brown, as opposed to just cooked. If you start with regular carrots you cut up yourself, they will a) roast faster and b) not have extra liquid.)
You could pause here, if you wanted, and do the rest another time. (Refridgerate or freeze your roast carrots before pausing, obviously.) You could also roast them in the oven instead: I usually aim at 45 minutes at about 350 degrees, adjusting until the right level of roasted.)
I find that non-frozen veggies usually roast in the slow cooker in 2-3 hours on high, and 4-5 hours on low, while frozen veggies add an hour or two, plus need the lid off for a bit once the ice has melted. They do need to be stirred occasionally (like once an hour) or you will end up with some very browned ones, and some not-browned-at-all ones, but other than that can be basically ignored, which is not something I do with the oven.
Next:
- Add your 4 cups of stock (or stock + wine) to the slow cooker and the carrots.
- Add your dried onion, garlic, and dill.
- Cover again, and let cook for a while, until flavors merge.
I put in about a generous handful of dried onion, a small pinch of garlic (a quarter tsp equals a clove, so this is about 2-3 cloves worth), and sprinkle dill across to cover the surface and be stirred in twice. You may want to adjust proportions, because I believe in onions and in dill and am profuse in their abundance.
This part is pretty time flexible: you could put it on low in the morning, and come home at night and it'd be just fine, or you can do it for 2-3 hours, which is also just fine.
If, like me, you did the 'roast the carrots' bit starting mid-morning, let them spend lunch with the lid off, and then roasted a bit more, before adding liquid, you cook them until you feel like having dinner.
When you are ready to eat
- Turn off the slow cooker
- Apply immersion blender until smooth enough. (I like leaving some chunks). Avoid splashing hot soup on yourself or your kitchen.
- Add enough half-and-half to change the color of the soup (probably 1-2 cups depending on your tastes.) Stir thoroughly.
- You may wish to add a bit of lemon juice and/or salt and/or pepper, depending on taste. (Stir, again.) I am a really firm believer in lemon juice improving many soups.
- Serve. You can add a little bit of sour cream if you like, or you could sprinkle dill on top as a garnish. Goes nicely with bread.
[1] You can, of course, start with regular long orange pointy carrots.
[2] You can also make your own stock, which I often do, but I don't currently have any on hand. Or you could use the jarred base stuff. Or whatever else you want to use to make stock happen.
If you make your own stock, you can control the salt content: most packaged stocks have a huge amount of sodium.
[3] If, like me, you live by yourself and do not cook with onions or garlic every day, these are both nice quick solutions. Or, if like me, you have limited energy, and want to use your cooking energy for other things than starting a meal by cooking onions and garlic and having to keep a close eye on them.
[4] Or half a lemon, if you have ones like the ones I got from Trader Joe's on Tuesday, which are these huge amazing things that produce juice after juice after juice.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 11:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 12:06 am (UTC)I'll make a batch tomorrow, as I forget my adaptations from recipe. (I'd been planning to make some sometime this week anyway, so I have everything I need.)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 03:40 am (UTC)(Seriously, this is the best Indian cookbook ever. Do not be fooled by the lack of photographs and the fact that it was first published in the 1980s. The recipes work, even when it's asking for weird things compared to European cooking -- I mean, what is this cook the onions for 20 minutes and then put in three diced jalepenos in the last 45 seconds thing? But it works, and wasn't overly spicy at all -- and the results actually taste like real Indian food, or at least as real as what the local restaurants serve.)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 12:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-04 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 12:57 am (UTC)