Detox Recipe for the New Year: Carrot, Fingerling Potato and Parsley Soup

Carrot, fingerling potato, and parsley soup

Happy New Year!   I took a few weeks away from my blog to immerse myself in the Christmas season, with all its busy-ness, festive obligations, and visits with family and friends.    

THE HOLIDAYS AND MY CRANKY GUTS: SHORT UPDATE

Like many people, I veered away from my usual diet during the holidays -- more cheese/dairy, more sweets, less locally sourced foods, more food overall -- and had a few moments of extreme nausea and bloating, and constipation followed me into the new year.  I'm still experiencing occasional vomiting episodes -- scary! -- that seem to be related to eating too much, or eating too late.   I have to be vigilant about this.    I've not yet scheduled my first colonoscopy -- suggested by Dr. C. even though I'm not quite at the "colonoscopy age" yet, just to be sure nothing concerning is going on.  We're both convinced most of my issues are related to "stress" but if there is a pathological reason, we need to address it.   I'll deal with scheduling something after mid-January, when work deadlines subside; right now, it is a madhouse (which of course is probably contributing to my cranky guts - the circle continues!).

Soup underway!

BACK ON TRACK:  CARROT, FINGERLING, AND PARSLEY SOUP

After Christmas, I was eager to get back to cooking, and the greenmarkets.  I regularly shop at two greenmarkets that are open year round.  I'm fascinated by cold weather produce, and the challenge of cooking seasonally.  There's the occasional bag of frozen spinach and imported citrus, but mostly we rely on the winter root cellar: carrots, potatoes, turnips, apples, pears, and the rest of winter's pragmatic tubers and other produce.    Craving lots of vegetables and something easy to digest, I came up with this  tasty, GERD-friendly, nourishing blended soup (one of my New Year's Resolutions -- to use my immersible blender more often!).  I had this four four days in a row -- a great "detoxing" start to 2013!

Ingredients:

Sourced from your local greenmarket or farm

4 large cloves garlic (if you have small cloves, use more), pressed or finely chopped 

1 small onion, chopped 

4 medium to large carrots, sliced and chopped 

5-6 fingerling potatoes, quartered 

1 generous handful fresh parsley, chopped 

Olive oil

Water

1. Heat olive oil in soup pot and add garlic.  Cook over low heat until fragrant and softened.
2. Add onion.  Cook until softened.
3. Stir in carrots.  Cover with lid and cook until just softened.  Stir to prevent sticking/burning.
4. Add water to cover vegetables by about one inch.  Add potatoes and a few tablespoons of parsley.
5. Bring to boil and then simmer, uncovered, until vegetables are soft.
6. Add remaining parsley and cook for a few minutes.  Using immersible blender, blend until desired consistency.
7. Before serving, sprinkle with a few parsley leaves.

Variations:  I'm going to try this recipe again, varying it with celeriac, sunchokes, and other roots, or different potatoes (though the fingerlings are just divine in a soup).   A version of this with acorn or butternut squash might work.  I think turnips or parsnips might be too harsh for the flavor I'm trying to achieve here, and I may omit the onion next time.   I'm always interested in adding apples to savory dishes, and wonder how they would go here? 

Storage:  I divided the soup into portions for two and for one using my new Pyrex storage containers (yay, Santa!).  I did not freeze these, wanting to keep the mellow flavor away from any freezer burn.   

Cooling on the window ledge.