Curried Carrot Soup

Hi All,

I am back again with a new post after a long gap of almost 4 months and believe me it was not easy for me to stay away from my blog..but I had to because of many personal reasons. And I am sure all my blogger friends out there know how hard it gets to come out of this non-blogging habbit(specially after such a long gap). I am trying so hard to get back on the track and to post regularly like before. So, here I am with my new post or should I say my first post of this year.

Here is how I make my carrot soup.. being someone who loves spicy food, I love to have curried carrot soup instead of the bland(yet easy peasy) version , where you just boil the carrots with the stock and puree it and top it with some seasoning . So here goes the recipe for the soup...lets enjoy this hot soup one last time, before we say goodbye to cold winters and warm clothes.

CURRIED CARROT SOUP

Ingredients:
500 grams Carrots- chopped,
1 Onion-chopped,
2-3 cloves of fresh garlic -chopped,
3-4 cups Chicken stock/ vegetable stock,
1-2 tbsp butter / vegetable oil,
1 tsp red chilli powder,
1/4 tsp coriander powder,
1/2 tsp pepper powder,
a pinch of garam masala,
1/2 cup sour cream(optional)
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice and
salt to taste.

Method:
Heat the butter/ oil in a large saucepan. Add the garlic and saute for 15 -30 seconds over medium heat. Add the onions and the carrots and saute for 2-3 minutes. Add all the spices- chilli powder, pepper powder, corinader powder, garam masala and mix well and add salt to taste. Now add the stock and bring to a boil. Simmer and cook till the carrots become tender.
Puree this in a blender, in small batches until smooth . Bring back to a boil on simmer and add salt if needed. Add the lemon juice and serve hot with sour cream or Crème fraiche or freshly chopped coriander leaves.

Note:
If using store bought stock, make sure you add very liitle salt, because the stock already contain salt in it. Or check and add the salt after you puree the carrots.

I am sending this to Ramana's event - Treat to eyes:Series-2.

Best of 2010

Wishing all my friends and readers a very Happy and Prosperous NEW YEAR. I finally managed to come here and do a last post of 2010 :) This year has been like a roller coaster ride for me...I took too many breaks from my blogging and could post only few recipes compared to last year. But I am happy to say that I learned and explored many new and different cuisines this year. And I promise to back next year with many more recipes and try my best to be active every month in posting on my blog and visiting other food blogs. For now...here are the best recipes and most liked recipes of 2010 on my blog.

1. Box of Chocolate Cake



2. Classic Carrot Cake



3. Black Forest Cake



4. Sesame Naans



5. Portuguese custard tarts



And here are few of my personal favourites...

1.Shakshouka



2 Tiramisu cake

3.Baked blueberry cheesecake


4. Bread Chaat

5. Achari gosht

Cherry and Blueberry Clafoutis

Have you ever noticed the difference in taste when you buy fruits from the supermarket and the ones that you buy from the Local farmer's market. If not.. than let me tell you that the local farmer's markets always sell fresh fruits grown locally .and organically and thus the taste is always much much better than the store bought fruits. Though they have short shelf life, I love the fresh taste of their fruits.

So, for me farmer's market is my favourite place for buying our fruits and veggies. We always make it a point to go there once in a week to buy fresh produce. And during one of my visits to the local farmer's market, I grabbed these juicy and fresh cherries.They were so sweet and tasty and not to forget about their freshness. And I had bought too many cherries that week, so I decided to make Clafoutis with them. Actually this post was looong due (more than 2 months) in summer ..but as I was not very active in my blog, I am posting this now.Anyways, its better now than never..right?

Clafoutis or clafouti pronounced kla-foo-TEE is a very famous baked French dessert made commonly with fresh cherries layered in a dish and covered by a thin batter. And served with generously dusted icing sugar.It is traditional to use the cherries with their pits as it is believed that the pits release a nice aroma to this delicious dessert.And here in this recipe, I have used the cherries with their pits. But, I know that many people out there would not like biting into the pit in their dessert. If you are among those, you can pit the cherries before baking.

CHERRY AND BLUEBERRY CLAFOUTIS

Ingredients:
400 grams of cherries
100 grams of Blueberries
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 large eggs-lightly beaten
4-5 tbsp fine sugar
250 ml milk
50 grams unsalted butter-melted
1/2 tsp of vanilla extract and
Icing sugar for dusting

Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 180 C/350 F. Butter a shallow oven proof dish . Place the cherries and berries in the dish. In a bowl, mix the flour, milk, sugar, eggs , melted butter and vanilla extract until smooth and creamy. pour over the fruits and bake in the pre heated oven for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. When warm, dust with icing sugar and serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream or crème frâiche.

Notes:
Don't over beat the mixture. Just mix very lightly until well blended and smooth.
Like I said earlier, I have used the cherries with the pits. But one can pit them, before using for clafaoutis with a cherry pitter.
I had blueberries, so I just added them to this clafoutis. But you can entirely use cherries or with any other favourite fruit of yours.

This yummy French dessert is off to DK's event AWED hosted this month by Priya of Priya's easy N tasty Recipes and AWED is celebrating French cusine this month.