Here are two servings of the Carrot and Red Beet Soup, with some pistachios and a dollop of plain Greek-style yogurt added as toppings.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Carrots, red beets, an onion, garlic, olive oil and stock are the main ingredients in this soup. There’s also a teaspoon of orange zest, which didn’t make it into this photo but did make it into the soup. The yogurt and pistachios are optional toppings.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
“I can taste the fresh vegetables, but I want more seasoning,” page designer and taste tester Ashley Bringmann said as she sampled some Carrot and Red Beet Soup from the Times Leader test kitchen this week. “This doesn’t wow me.”
“It has grated ginger and orange zest in it — and garlic,” I said, wondering if I should have increased the amounts of those flavorful ingredients.
“I’m not getting any of that,” Ashley explained. “Just the beets and carrots.”
As I collected comments from the rest of the taste testers, it turned out reporter Jen Learn-Andes liked the overall flavor of the soup but would have preferred a smoother consistency, and columnist Bill O’Boyle detected the ginger and really isn’t a fan.
Carrie Wagner, our intern, detected the ginger and liked it. She also likes red beets, and felt they compensated for the taste of the carrots, which she doesn’t really like.
Then Carrie reminded me of the pistachios I’d used as a topping for sweet potato soup a few weeks ago and said she thought they would be a good addition. “Ask and you shall receive,” I said, explaining that I’d brought a bag of pistachios to the newsroom to add as a soup topping and had momentarily forgotten all about them.
Soon both Carrie and Ashley were shelling pistachios and adding them to their soup. “It definitely adds taste and saltiness,” Ashley said.
Back in my neighorhood, my mom was wholeheartedly in favor of the soup — and so was I. For his part Mark, after hearing about the newsroom comments, said he agreed with Jen about the consistency and with Ashley about the need for more seasonings. So opinions were all over the board. But, remember, you can easily increase the seasonings and you can probably make the soup smoother with more blending. And all the while, you can rest assured that the carrots and beets contain so many antioxidants some people call them “super foods.”
Readers sometimes ask where my food ideas come from; this one probably sprang from the knowledge that the crisper drawer at the bottom of our refrigerator was full of carrots and also contained a few red beets. The recipe came from a blog called Easy Real Food, and I followed it fairly closely — except that I used an entire onion instead of half, and I thinned the soup with an extra pint of broth.
Here is the recipe from easyrealfood.com/.
Carrot and Red Beet Soup
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
6-7 carrots , peeled and cut into chunks
3 beets, peeled and cut into chunks
1/2 cup vegetable stock
2 large garlic cloves, diced
1-inch knob ginger, grated with microplane
5.5 cups low sodium vegetable stock
1 teaspoon orange zest
1 teaspoon salt
In a large soup pot, add oil and heat over medium heat. Add onion and cook for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add beets and carrots and 1/2 cup of veggie stock. Stir and cover. Turn heat to low-medium and cook for 10 minutes, covered.
Add remaining ingredients. Simmer for 45-50 minutes, or until vegetables are tender.
Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Blend with an immersion blender or with a high speed blender. SOUP MUST NOT BE HOT if you are using a regular blender. The pressure will make the lid fly off, so use caution.
Add additional salt or pepper to taste.
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