What's Cookin' - what do you do with a carrot????

This one was hard - not because I didn't know WHAT to do with a carrot - but because there is SO MUCH  you can do with a carrot and it was hard to choose!

Eventually I narrowed it down to:

1. Carrot Soup I (in beef broth)
2. Carrot Soup I variation - is creamed
3. Carrot Soup II (in chicken broth - also "creamed")
4. Carrot pudding - which I NOW have all the ingredients for
5. Carrot and orange marmalade

Eventually I will make all these - and post the recipes.  However for now - I made the Carrot Soup I (in beef broth) variation (I  creamed it! - plus other stuff!)

I love cookbooks (I think I said that before sometime or other) and have a lot of them - some with missing covers, some where the binding is nearly transparent.  This time the cover is still there - and readable!  Where I got it?  I have NO idea - although I suspect I got it from my daughter's bookstore - not sure though!

The book is titled "Soups, Chowders & Stews" by Georgia Orcutt and is part of the Flavor of New England series. It was published by Yankee Books in Camden, Maine and original copyright is 1981 (11th printing is 1991) pp. 44-45.

Carrot Soup

2 Tablespoons butter
2 onions, peeled and chopped
2 Tablespoons chopped parsley
2 teaspoons chopped sage
2 Tablespoons flour
4 cups beef stock
8 carrots, peeled and chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter in soup kettle.  Saute' onions, parsley, and sage until tender.  Sprinkle with flour and stir gently but quickly until well blended.  Slowly add stock, stirring constantly until mixture is smooth.  Add carrots and simmer, partially covered, over low heat for 20 minutes or until carrots are tender. (Baby carrots may require only 10 minutes.) Press through food mill, season with salt and pepper, and reheat - or chill and serve cold.  Serves 4-6
For Cream of Carrot Soup: Add 1/2 cup to 1 cup cream to pureed soup and reheat; also good cold.

My modifications - I grind my own flour - and used whole wheat flour - which made for a lovely rich beige thickened soup.

I didn't have any fresh carrots when I made this - but DID have dehydrated carrots - so used about 8 tablespoons (could have used a bit more) dehydrated carrots and added it directly to the broth which I then boiled for maybe 30 minutes - thereby rehydrating the carrots (8 tablespoons when re-hydrated is about 1.5 cups rehydrated carrots.  Because I did this the way I did I didn't want to thicken it until AFTER the carrots were rehydrated - and since I had decided I wanted to have cream of carrot soup anyway - I added the flour to the cold cream, whisked that in and then added a bit of the hot to the mixture - whisked and slowly added to the main mixture - whisking all the while.

Yes, I could have pureed it - and may do so the next time - but, frankly I enjoyed seeing the little bits of golden sunshine peeking through the thickened broth!

I thoroughly enjoyed the soup - enough so that I reheated it for supper - and - uh - well, I didn't have any leftover to freeze!