Gwen Gaillard was the belle of Nantucket’s culinary scene for years. We have a tattered cookbook filled with Gwen’s recipes from her heyday. This carrot soup is one of them, with a little of my own updates and thoughts.
Carrot Soup Ingredients Are So Simple
Carrots, turnips, potatoes and onions are really all this carrot soup consists of. Simplicity. But it packs a grounding sweetness – rooting I should say – of tubers. Perfect for this transitional season of surprising coolness and breeziness, when you get hungry for hearty but don’t want to slide into dough-eating.
We got a beautiful bunch of carrots from the Farmer’s Market in Great Barrington this week, along with a turnip, so it was time to get this one rolling. This carrot soup is a great base for adding a variety of other flavors – toss in an apple, or a thumb-sized piece of ginger, or some spicy peppers for variety. Gwen’s recipe calls for butter, but you can easily make this soup vegan and delicious by simply sautéing the onions in olive oil rather than butter. Easy.
Carrots, turnips, potatoes and onions are really all this soup consists of. Simplicity.
Course Dinner, Lunch, Soup
Equipment
1 Saute' pan
1 Soup pot
Ingredients
1/4large yellow onionsliced
2Tbspbutter
1 1/2lbsfresh carrotsscrubbed and sliced
1large turnipwashed and cubed
2large potatoeswashed and cubed
2quartswater
1tspsalt
1tsppeppercorns
Instructions
Saute the onions in the butter over medium-low heat.
Place the carrots, turnip, and potatoes in a soup pot with water, and simmer over low heat. After a half-hour, add the sautéed onions, salt and pepper.
When vegetables are soft, blend with a hand-blender (or a regular blender if need be).
A chef from Kripalu taught me the egg over veggies trick. It’s quick, easy and satisfying. You can substitute any vegetable for the mushrooms and sweet potatoes in this easy breakfast recipe- try spinach, onions, tomatoes or your favorite blend of vegetables.
Let’s talk about wild mushrooms!
This year, our local farmer’s market has had a bumper crop of really beautiful mushrooms for a really reasonable price. Look at these beauties – oyster mushrooms.
Do you know that mushrooms have characteristics of both plants and animals? They are strange and wonderful little beings, and nutritionally rich in vitamins and minerals (not, however, protein as is often suggested). You can substitute any mushroom for those I use in this recipe.
This dish, while simple, is wonderfully balanced from a protein-carbohydrate-fat perspective, as there are healthful versions of each. Egg protein will keep you satisfied, as will the bit of anti-inflammatory monounsaturated olive oil. Sweet potatoes are a complex fiber-filled carbohydrate and they and the mushrooms are nutrient-dense, filled with vitamins and nutrients.
Here’s a quick weekday breakfast.
Egg "Poached" on Wild Mushrooms and Sweet Potatoes
This recipe is quick, easy and satisfying. You can substitute any vegetable for the mushrooms and sweet potatoes in this easy breakfast recipe- try spinach, onions, tomatoes or your favorite blend of vegetables.
Course Breakfast, Lunch
Servings 1
Equipment
Saute' pan
Ingredients
1egg
1tspolive oil
2/3cupwild mushroomschopped
1/3cupsweet potatocooked (leftover from the weekend!) and cubed
1 1/2tspdried thymeor the fresh or dried herb of your choice
Instructions
Warm olive oil in a small pan and sauté mushrooms and sweet potatoes for 3 or 4 minutes over medium-high heat.
Crack an egg into the pan, sprinkle with herbs, cover and turn down heat to low-medium. Let the egg “poach” in the steam of the vegetables for 3 or 4 minutes.
So easy. So tasty. So healthy. Make this lovely spring breakfast or not-too-sweet dessert right now.
If you have violets in your yard, here’s a whole new way to enjoy them. Violets are filled with antioxidants, so are health promoting in all the ways so many herbs and botanicals are. The lemon and violets both lend a light fragrance to this no-cook pudding.
I think of the ratio for chia a lot like the ratio for grains – that is, one part seeds to two parts liquid (for a pudding like this). I don’t count the yogurt in liquid – to me, that’s to make a creamy texture.
Make this the night before your breakfast, or a few hours before dinner for dessert. I used yogurt for a big of creaminess – for a vegan version, use a coconut yogurt or just skip the yogurt, perhaps boosting the chia for thickness.
Enjoy!
Ingredients
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
juice and zest of 1/2 fresh lemon
2 tsp honey
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup chia seed
1/4 cup plain yogurt (good quality any level of fat)
1/2 cup violets – use heads (if you are up for chewing) or just the petals
Directions
In a medium bowl, mix almond milk, lemon juice, zest, honey, and vanilla. Stir in yogurt and chia. Add most of violets, saving a couple to decorate your creation.
Place in refrigerator overnight, or at least for 4 hours before serving.
Makes two – 2/3 cup servings.
For breakfast, if you top with 1/2 cup of blueberries, you’ll have a fiber, protein and nutrient rich start to your day.
Report back!
Annie
People who cook at home are healthier – studies like this one suggest they eat fewer calories, more nutrients, less sugar and more fiber. When you eat better, you feel better, look better and just might live longer. It’s worth it – you’re worth it.
Want to really eat better? Learn to cook (and eat) at Kripalu.
When people come to do yoga at Kripalu, the largest yoga and holistic education center in the country, they rave about the food. The food there is rave-worthy, filled with fruits and vegetables lovely prepared into delicious dishes.
A couple times a year, I team up with Kripalu’s Executive Chef Jeremy Rock Smith to offer a program called Nutrition and Cooking Immersion. Over the course of a five night program, we take you through the basics plus of a mindful approach to nutrition, and the basics plus of preparing delicious balanced whole food cooking tips for home.
I think of this as the perfect program – the perfect balance of information (I teach nutrition and mindfulness in the morning) and experiential learning (in addition to mindfulness experiences in the morning, the knives come out – in a good way – in the afternoon). Through the week, you put together – while understanding why – a balanced meal with variations. What you leave with is a plan. And some skills. And the know-how to feed yourself. Well.
What unfolds looks a little like this:
Sunday night: Welcome and introductions – of each other, of the program.
Monday & Tuesday morning: The new basics of whole-food plant-based nutrition
Wednesday: Supporting positive change
Thursday: Planning for success: meals, recipes, shopping lists
Friday: Take it home
Now, let me tell you about my colleague Jeremy.
To say that Jeremy is entertaining is an understatement. He’s funny. I’ll let you be the judge of just how funny he is. He’s not only funny, however. He brings the goods. Even foodies learn a little something new from Jeremy. He’s designed the afternoon cooking session to give you cooking tips and the principles of whole food plant based cooking, and then a flexible framework to help you make it seasonal and flexible and varied.
Five-day Transformation
I’ve been teaching this program for 7 years or so, and I love to see the transformation that happens to people from Sunday night when we come together – nervous, afraid it ‘won’t work’, stressed from life, to Friday morning – roaring to get back to our own kitchens, confident and ready to go, rested and yoga-ed up. Another part of the secret sauce is the bonds you make with other people in the program – I have a growing Facebook group of grads of the program, and years later, they’re still cooking.
So, if you want to get into your kitchen with a little more enthusiasm and a little less angst, see you there.
If you want to bring whole-food plant-based eating into your life, and learn cooking tips to do that, see you there.
If you want to know the why 0f eating – and the how of eating – see you there. Here’s where you can check out all mu upcoming workshops.
Be well.
Spicy shots! I love ’em. A couple of years ago Free Fire Cider, based on a folk recipe, popularized by herbalist Rosemary Gladstar, and trademarked, with great controversy in the herbal world, but a group in WMA, had its moment in the sun. Here’s my fire cider recipe.
Since then, I’ve been enamored with making spicy shots – delicious concoctions designed to warm and give a nutritional zing-ha to your morning. It’s a practice I especially get into in these (still!) cooler months.
Here’s one I whipped up this weekend, with tart cherry juice and apple cider vinegar. Cherry, ginger, and turmeric are all anti-inflammatories and packed with antioxidants. Apple cider vinegar is a natural probiotic. If you, like me are in the second half of life, this drink is vata-pacifying – grounding and warming.
Quick, easy, and makes you say “haaaaaa”. I aimed for warmth rather than heat in the spice. Raw garlic makes me burp, though my husband is focused on eating more, so I suggest he use this to wash down a nice raw clove for himself. Pow.
A delicious concoction designed to warm and give a nutritional zing-ha to your morning
Course Breakfast, Drinks
Equipment
Blender
Ingredients
1/2cupunsweetened cherry juice
1/2cupapple cider vinegar
1Thumb-sized piece of gingersliced
3Tspturmericdried spice
1/2tspcayenneor to tast
Instructions
Place everything in a blender and blend away. Pour into a small mason jar with a lid. The ginger and spice tend to separate, so give it a shake before your morning shot. I take about an ounce after my morning coffee and morning practices, a few minutes before breakfast.
I have a spicy-shot-for-every-season vision!
Have a favorite spicy shot you make?
Please share in the comments!
Everyone should have a vegetable-based recipe or two that takes (snap!) that long, that serves as a quick meal or snack. This raw Asian slaw recipe has been a mainstay of my 3pm-give-me-carbs attack for years. It works.
The heart of the recipe is savoy cabbage and rice wine vinegar. You can enjoy (and I often do) just these two ingredients. But why not toss in some carrot, cilantro or Thai basil, and sesame oil? Add a handful of cashews, organic tofu or garbanzo beans to make it a meal.
This is a great springtime detox recipe, because it is nutritionally dense, and contains the antioxidants that support your liver in its biotransformation of cellular gunk into removable trash, which can then be flushed out of your body via the usual exit routes. This recipe also has lots of fiber, secret weapon of the weight-conscious.
Asian Slaw Recipe
Ingredients
½ cup savoy cabbage sliced thin
½ cup red cabbage sliced thin
a few fresh snow peas, sliced
¼ cup diced red pepper
1 medium carrot, diced
1 Tbsp fresh cilantro if available
2 tsp rice wine vinegar
optional:
2 Tbsp Asian salad dressing
2 tsp sesame oil
1 slice fresh ginger, diced with skin trimmed
a handful of cashews, or 1/2 cup tofu
Directions
Toss everything together and eat.
Just getting started with healthy eating? This article will help.