Carrot and Basil Soup
Well the weather has been very wet and cold in Perth this weekend so it was definitely soup weather, ok I actually had soup pretty much twice a day while I was in Phuket, but it is officially soup weather and I love soup!This is one of my favourite soups, although I would never have tried it from a recipe. Carrots are my least favourite vegie so when I rocked up for a girls lunch at Aideen’s many years ago I wasn’t very excited about it. I am not sure if it is the butter that gives it a creamy flavour or basil that changes the “carrot” flavour. Whatever the reason I love this soup.I was concerned… again, not my healthiest choice for my 2nd recipe (well it does have a lot of carrots!!) so I thought I would try a weirdo (as Marty would call it!) version and replaced butter with organic coconut oil, it was quite nice with a coconut hint to it.
I have also added a little twist to the soup by adding Quinoa. This makes it a very hearty, filling soup that does not need bread to fill you up. You can always leave it out and use fresh bread to accompany it. I have added a little info about Quinoa below if you care to read it.this
I hope some of you try it and enjoy
Ingredients
- 6 organic carrots *
- 1 stick celery
- 1 onion
- 3 Tblsp butter – healthy option coconut oil *
- ½ tspn dried basil
- 1 Tblsp fresh parsley
- 5 cups organic chicken stock *
- option 1 cup cooked organic quinoa *
Method
- Chop vegies roughly, sauté in butter for 5 minutes
- Add basil, parsley and flour, cook for 5 minutes
- Add stock and simmer for 20 minutes
- Blend until smooth
- Add cooked quinoa if you wish
This recipe is very Thermamix friendly!
* shopping tips. It is not that hard or expensive to reduce pesticides and chemicals in your diet, here are a few tips related to this recipe. All below ingredients can be bought easily at Coles:
- Organic carrots are the one vegie that seems to be easily accessed in vegie dept, they are usually fresh and not too expensive
- Organic Quinoa
- Organic coconut oil (which are often on special)
- Organic stock ” “