Carrot Soup With A Little Tang And Perk

Every weekend, I look over to Mr. L across the kitchen and ask "what would you like to eat this week?" just to see if he had anything on his mind. Last week, he smiled at me and said "soup, we should have some soup and make that carrot soup". Perfect, there is a bag of carrots that's been in the fridge! But carrot soup... It's so... It's carrots. I may not be a little kid anymore but I can't say that I love to eat them. I don't even like carrot cake and I LOVE cakes. There's a serious need to spice things up if I am going to make some carrot soup. Times like this, Google is my best friend. Waving the magic wand and voila, a carrot soup with much needed spicing up!

The recipe calls for an interesting combination of carrots, orange and ginger. The trouble with using oranges is that sometimes they don't taste very "orangy". I found these cute little orange things with knobs on the end of them in the grocery store. They are called Minneola tangelos, a funny fruit from crossing a grapefruit and a tangerine. I have no idea what they tasted like but a girl can have dreams for her tangelos to preform wonders in a carrot soup, no? The result is overwhelmingly tangy spicy carrot soup that will blow your socks off! The cheese bread that I bought from the store to go w/ the bread made a wonderful pairing. I need to figure out how to made some for the next time.

Carrot Soup with Tangelo and Ginger
Adapted from SOS Cuisine
Makes 4 servings

1 tablespoon canola oil
1 onions
6 carrots
4 Minneola tangelo
2 1/2 tablespoons ginger, coarsely grated
750 mL chicken broth
Salt to taste
Ground pepper to taste
Splash of cream (15%) per bowl of soup

1. Dice the onion. Peel and slice the carrots. Slice the tangelos in half and remove all the seeds. Use a spoon to remove the meat from the peel. I find it easier to do it this way than to remove the seeds from each slice of tangelo. Coarsely grate the ginger.
2. Sweat the onions in a large pot over medium high heat using the teaspoon of oil. When the onion turns transparent, add in the carrots, tangelo, ginger, and broth. Bring to a boil, lower the heat to medium low. Cover and simmer until the carrots are tender. Stir every 5-10 minutes.
3. Purée the soup, then pour it back into the pot. Add salt and pepper to your taste. Stir in a tablespoon of cream per bowl of soup.

Note: I find that the tangelos are a little too sour for the soup. I think mandarins would be a better choice. The carrots were not as sweet as I'd hoped. A sprinkle of brown sugar may help balance the soup better.