Ambien 5 Mg Order Valium To Buy Buy Soma 350Mg Buy Diazepam 5Mg Online
Thursday, November 21, 2024
Top News

Carrot Ginger Soup with Whipped Avocado Cream: Eat Your Colors!

July 31, 2014
0
Share
    Hello my little bunny rabbits!  I hope you are doing well and eating well! So it’s summertime, did you know that? I haven’t really been taking advantage of all the fun produce that I should be eating; I really kind of use the same ingredients all the time. I need to get a CSA delivery, huh? Well before I’m able to do some better shopping, tonight I thought hey let’s at least make something more colorful than usual! 

I don’t know about you guys, but in the summer, after we have a spell of 90 or 100 degree days, and then it hits the 70s or really even the 80s, I feel like it’s so cold out! Even now, I’m wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants (not the same color of course; what am I crazy?) but it’s like 80 degrees in Philly. Meaning, I am cold, so I made soup! But carrot ginger soup feels so light and summery, don’t you think? It’s because it is so simple and lovely. Topped with a dollop of whipped avocado cream, it’s the most charming, cheerful looking meal I’ve had in a while! Oh yes, also delicious! And healthy! We are supposed to eat the rainbow, right? Here is orange and green! And for dessert, have some red Twizzlers. (They’re vegan!) 
Carrot Ginger Soup
Ingredients:

  • 2T olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, chopped
  • 1t salt
  • 2T fresh ginger, minced
  • lots of black pepper
  • 1 large potato, diced (see proper size at right)
  • 1 pound carrots (I used a bag of baby carrots, it is so much easier, and the slightly sweeter taste works here)
  • 3 cups water or vegetable broth 

Directions:

  1. In a large pot, cook the onion in the oil over medium heat for about 6 minutes.
  2. Add the garlic, salt, and ginger, and cook for another 4-5 minutes. In any recipe, I always prefer to cook the onion and garlic until they are super brown. It’s just better that way.
  3. Add the carrots, potato, pepper, and water or broth and bring to a boil.
  4. Let boil for 2-3 minutes, then cover and bring to a simmer (I used medium heat) for 25 minutes. 
  5. Turn off the heat and use an immersion blender to blend the soup until it is silky smooth. If you don’t have an immersion blender, order one from Amazon or Bed Bath and Beyond or something first, then use a regular blender and try not to get hurt. 

Whipped Avocado Cream
Ok…so it’s not really whipped, it’s blended. BUT WHIPPED SOUNDS BETTER DOESN’T IT I MEAN I GOT YOU TO READ IT.

Ingredients:

  • 2 small very ripe avocados
  • 1/3 C raw cashews
  • 1/2 t salt (I used pink Himalayan sea salt and it was awesome but it probably tastes the same with regular salt.)
  • 1/4C unsweetened plain almond milk

Directions:

  1. Blend everything in a high-speed blender. I think if you don’t have one, second choice would be to use a food processor, rather than having you soak the cashews for a regular blender, because it might be too thin with soaked cashews. Worth a try though! If you use a food processor, try using a tablespoon less milk. Also, last choice would be trying to do it in a Magic Bullet, like I did before finally giving up on that piece of shit (that only works with pure liquids) and transferring the whole mess to the Vitamix. Anyway….
  2. Top the soup with a dollop or two of the cream and enjoy! 

Picture

IF I COULD TURN BACK TA-OOOOOME

Picture

TA-OOOOOME.

Picture

If I could find a way

Picture

I’d take back those words that hurt you

Picture

And you’d stay

Picture

If I could reach the stars

Picture

I’d give em all to you! Then you’d LOVE ME LOVE ME LOOOVEEE MEEEE LIKE YOU USED TO DOOOOO
           Serving this soup with a salad and a grilled tofu or tempeh dish would be great. Or whatever you want. I wish I made a grilled tempeh to go with this, but I didn’t. I’m not a machine. 
          What are your favorite colorful meals?  For example, I just had a package of Manner and that comes in a pink wrapper. Good choice? 
Related Posts

Vegan Michelin: The Most Epic (& Vegan!) Meal at Alinea, Chicago

September 18, 2013
0

Picture

    As a vegan, I don’t feel much incentive to follow the fancy world of gourmet-level dining, what with their Zagat ratings and Michelin stars and whatever other rankings people in that spectrum of dining covet. In fact, there was a time when all I knew about Michelin stars came from the movie “Ratatouille”. (Great film.) I’m sure it’s interesting to some people, but it sounded odd to rank something as subjective as good food. Moreover, aside from the ratatouille, the honored restaurants and their prize dishes are pretty much the opposite of vegan-friendly. Why would I ever want to go to a restaurant that was lauded for its foie gras, or thought it was commendable to do weird things to all kinds of animals? Nope.
However, my boyfriend is into all of that, and while he goes to those places with friends, I felt a little bad that he couldn’t enjoy these places with me. I’m fun company. But then we were planning a trip to Chicago, and he wanted to go to Alinea. He wanted to go there BAD. So bad, in fact, that he scoured the internet trying to find something that said they could accommodate a vegan. Luckily, he didn’t have to search too long, thanks to the lovely Lagusta, who in 2009 blogged about the vegan menu at Alinea. That’s right – anyone can request a vegan menu at a freaking top world restaurant with freaking THREE MICHELIN STARS. I was in! (I mean, I wasn’t paying. Of course I was in.)
        Our seating area was really dark, so the pictures aren’t great, but there is a pretty amazing video at the end showing the epic final dessert. I’ll do my best to remember what we had, but mostly it’s just all a blur of happiness to the point of near-comatose mind-blowingness.
    First, the menu. It’s so vague, I’m obsessed. Any other restaurant and I’d be like, could you put another word in there so I have any idea what you’re talking about? I mean — do you see the one about halfway through? It just says ‘fennel’ and then TWENTY QUESTION MARKS!!! What the what?! But it’s cool because it was all as awe inspiring as food can be.
Also, at the end of your meal, they give you a copy of your menu in a black folder. How nice!
     When we sat down, this ice block was on our table, on a bed of stones. We thought it was just a weirdly appropriate centerpiece for a molecular gastronomy restaurant, but it came into play with our food! I think…it’s hard to remember because of the aforementioned hallucinatory blur of amazingness. So, we’re going to mostly rely on pictures.
    The fun of molecular gastronomy really came through in this early dish. First, that tall glass arrived with that white vegetable balancing on top. You were to let it marinate while we ate other things, and then drop it onto that black rock (which was 1000 degrees) on the sand in the other glass to cook. Then, you dipped it into the sauce in the coconut shell. I appreciated being allowed to play with my food like an adult.
    I don’t really remember what was happening here, but I do know that it is ON FIRE. I love this picture, because crazy stuff was happening at every table as meals progressed, yet the other diners seemed business-like. I think they were just trying to act cool and stoic but inside were like Ahh fire!!! Oh except for the two little girls at the table next to us – yes, some family came with two children. To Alinea. And the kids were picky and so ate little of the amazing stuff put in front of them. I just…can’t…no.
I’m not really sure what this picture is of, but it was great, I’m sure.
Then, we had a little palate cleanser of pineapple slush.
Picture

Chunks of pineapple with ice crystals that melted into a slush
    This bowl at right was so funny because it was eerily reminiscent of puffed wheat cereal, like Sugar Smacks without the sugar. A fancy and delicious soupy version, of course, mixed with herbs and some vegetable.

The next section of our dining experience was my favorite savory part. See my plate, at right? Well, you were to mix each bite with two or three pieces from the below chess board of deliciousness, to create your own insane combinations. It was SO fun and so incredible.
Picture

That Fennel line still makes me laugh
Picture

I have no idea what this is, but it was delicious
Picture

Sugarless Smacks!
Picture

Each perfectly cooked vegetable was to be paired with whatever you fancied on the huge slab below
Picture

Smorgasbord!
     How cool is this! These little bites were incredible. See that white pillar in the upper left corner? It was like sweet delicious chalk. I don’t know what they freeze-dried to make it, but it blew my mind. So many little fried vegetables, purees and gels of wonderment. I’m obsessed. Also, this entire plate is vegan! Molecular gastronomy is so vegan friendly, because it’s so weird, I guess.
And then it just continued in its amazingness. The next two dishes were like ravioli, already on a spoon. Just one piece (raviolo, then), but it’s all you need. These bites, especially the one on the right, exploded with the most perfectly matched flavors I’ve ever encountered.
Picture

I don’t know what you were, but I loved you
Picture

The most perfect raviolo in the world
    The final savory dish (well, at least that I took a picture of! There was so much more! But I didn’t have a blog yet, so you can’t be mad) was this wooden slab of mushrooms, grain crumbs? orange? and foam that evoked a lovely meal in a remote log cabin, probably with Ron Swanson if he ever cooked more than meat. I can’t describe how excited I was for a decent amount of foam, because pretty much all I knew about molecular gastronomy going in was the use of foams.
Picture

If Ron Swanson were vegan
    How good does that look! It tasted even better, obviously, with the mushrooms, foams, spiced crumbles, and that crispy green leaf blending together so well it was like it was sponsored by Vitamix. Such a great finish.
     Or so we thought. We figured we’d have one or two dessert-y courses, but no. After the above plate, we got FOUR more wonderful things to eat. First, we had this great palate cleanser of five different pieces of ginger. I love ginger, so this wiry thing being placed in front of me made me really happy. Some pieces were sweet, some were really spicy. It was the best thing to have between the savory and dessert courses.
And then even more magic happened, each round more entertaining than the last. Next up were a few dollops of puddings surrounding a fruity liquid that you drank with that silver straw pictured.
Picture

Pieces of ginger
     I loved this dessert. I loved that you could drink the liquid inside, which was light and refreshing and not too sweet. On the dish, there was a sesame-laden blob, a fruity red blob, and this blob of rice pudding, made with rice milk, that was superb. In fact, my boyfriend, who got the regular omnivore menu, got a rice pudding that he said was yogurt-y and tart, and not as good as mine. He even suggested to the staff that the vegan version replace the regular one, because it was that much better!
     The next thing is just hilarious. It’s a balloon. A balloon made of green apple taffy filled with helium, so all night we saw waiters carrying actually floating balloons throughout the restaurant, and people got to eat them. It was so much fun. Insanely messy (taffy all over your face, pretty much), but fun. We were instructed to ‘kiss’ the balloon and then suck the helium out, mainly so the waiters could laugh when we talked and sounded like chipmunks! Then, with the taffy balloon deflated all over our faces (tip: put your hair back), we could eat it. My face automatically puckers at the mere thought of sour fruit candy like Sour Patch Kids and the like, but this had the right levels of sweet and sour. (I mean, obviously it’s going to be better than commercial candy.)
     The final dessert was just epic. A team of waitstaff removed everything from our table, rearranged the table, chairs, and us, and covered the table with a silicon mat. Then came the head chef, alerting us, “You’ll probably want to take a video of this.” Thanks to him, here is the video for your envy-filled pleasure. You can kind of hear him explaining what the purees are, what the liquid nitrogen-spewing ball is holding, and what the chocolate crumbles are made of. It’s mostly like insane astronaut style ice cream but much better.
     Dinner at Alinea was without a doubt the most…the most. Like Jack Donaghy in college, it’s getting voted just ‘most.’ If you ever have the opportunity to eat here, do it. It’s mad expensive, and it’s hard to say it’s worth it when it costs more than, like, rent, but if you can swing it, it’s absolutely worth it. I’m not even going to do my usual little roundup of water/service/food/bathroom because obviously this was beyond known ranges. Amazing!
Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *