Curry Carrot Soup with Wasabi Cream

For my Birthday, my friend Jenna surprised me with a wonderful cookbook called Simply Organic, by Jesse Ziff Cool. This book is also created by one of my favorite publishers and has wonderful layout design and photography. I would highly recommend picking up a copy.














This book compiles over thirty years of Cool's knowledge of organic, local and sustainable foods. With over 150 recipes, Simply Organic teaches home cooks about how to bring an organic and sustainable lifestyle into their homes. This book focuses on what to cook based on what ingredients are the freshest and ripest for each season and would be an excellent addition to your cookbook collection if you are an advocate of Farmer's Markets or CSAs. I may reference a lot of recipes (or adaptations) from this book as I start to try things out, so I figured I would first give it my stamp of deliciousness approval.

This first recipe that I am going to post is for Carrot Soup. According to the book, it is best created in Late Spring when carrots are their sweetest, but I figured living in California that I may not have needed to follow that rule. Being early Winter, the carrots ended up being a little bitter (I should have tasted them before making it!) but I can definitelty see its potential. The wasabi cream was also a nice touch.















Ingredients
3 T olive oil
2 large onions, sliced thin
2 lbs carrots, thinly sliced
1/2 cup apple juice
6 cup vegetable broth
1/4 cup fresh grated ginger
1 T curry powder
2 T local honey
Salt
Pepper

1 T wasabi powder
1 cup sour cream or greek yogurt
4 green onions, minced

Directions
Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions and cook for 5 minutes. Add the carrots and apple juice and cook for 3 more minutes. Add the broth, ginger and curry powder and bring to a boil.

Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 40 minutes or until the carrots are very tender.

Remove from heat and puree soup with an immersion blender until smooth. Stir in honey, salt and pepper to taste.

While the soup is cooking, in a glass measuring cup, blend the wasabi powder with the sour cream or yogurt. Stir in the green onions.

Ladle the soup into bowls and top with a generous spoonful of the wasabi cream.