Frugal Finance: Frugal Healthy Recipe: Quick Carrot Soup!

By Marissa Bognanno, Professional Chef and Foodie, and Author of The Boot Blog

One step to becoming a better home cook, I’ve learned, is to practice not only recipes, but techniques. With a recipe you can make one meal, but learn a technique and you can cook up a whole bunch of meals with different variants. A purèed vegetable soup is the perfect example of this; if you have some vegetables on hand and some water, then you can make soup. Here is the basic technique:

Drizzle some olive oil or butter in a stock pot. Add onions or garlic to your discretion. Chop your vegetable of choice and throw that in. Pour in just enough water to cover it all, or you can use broth if you want extra flavor. Add salt and pepper to taste and simmer on low heat until everything is soft. Pour into a blender to purèe. Serve with crusty bread, grated cheese, fresh olive oil or chopped fresh herbs - it’s up to you. And that’s it!

Quick Carrot Soup

5-6 carrots

1/2 small yellow onion chopped

1 tbs butter

salt + pepper

a good pinch of your herb of choice (dried sage, mint, thyme, nutmeg, etc.)

Heat a stockpot on medium low heat and add the butter and onions. Let them caramelize slowly until they are super soft and sweet. Add the chopped carrots and just enough water to cover. Add salt and pepper to taste (About 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper. Tasting is key!) Let it simmer uncovered on medium low heat until the carrots are falling apart and soft to the touch, then blend it all up with a trusty hand blender, or regular blender. Serve the soup with a good lash of olive oil and any herbs you like. You can crumble up some toasted, crusty bread on top too.

So we had our Women's Day party last night in a discoteca in town and it was, simply, cray-zay! Fill a room with 300 screaming happy girls, glow sticks, and strippers (ew, one was bald) and expect mayhem. We had a giant pitcher of mojito with straws and we danced until 2 a.m. Let's just say that I'm eating restorative oatmeal today and soaking my feet in a bubble bath! Have a great weekend my dear, dear readers and thank you so much for your continued supportive comments on my kitchen creations! :)

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