.curried carrot soup.

Back in November, my mom and sister were here from Seattle. Their visit coincided with a cooking class I was having here at the house. The topic for the class was "Soups, Stews, and Sauces". Nothing fancy, mind you, but I wanted to teach the ladies how to make a proper roux which is the root knowledge for making things like clam chowder, gravy, and alfredo!

I always try to offer a vegetarian dish too because I usually have a couple non-meat-eaters in the group. So I made a roasted carrot soup and added a dash of curry to it for a middle eastern taste and it was delicious! So delicious, that I decided to make it again for a church function yesterday.

**Note: Not only is this soup delicious and meat-free, it's VEGAN!

1. Begin by making vegetable broth. In a small soup pot, put water, carrots, celery, bay leaf, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat. Leave uncovered so the liquid can reduce. After it simmers on the cooktop for 1 hour, strain and reserve the liquid.

This stock can be made ahead of time and held in the fridge, or even put in the freezer!

2. Peel about 10 carrots and cutting them into 2-3 pieces. I use only organic carrots when I make this soup, but I can only imagine how delicious it would be with carrots grown from your own garden. I'm sure it would be so sweet!

3. Put the carrots on a baking sheet and drizzle lightly with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Pop carrots into a 350* oven and roast until they're fork tender (approximately 30 minutes). emove from the oven and put into a blender with 1 can coconut milk, 1/2 tsp curry powder and 1 tsp ground coriander seed toasted.

4. To toast the coriander seed, spoon into a small saute pan and put over medium high heat. Swirl the pan around so the seeds don't burn. The heat will draw out the oil and fragrance from the coriander and it smells slightly lemony. Remove from the pan after toasting 2 minutes and put in a spice grinder and pulse until fine.

5. I pulsed the blender for a minute, but found it too thick to really puree adequately, so I spooned in ladles full of the vegetable broth to thin it down. Once you get the desired consistency, taste and re-season with salt and pepper.

Serve hot or cold. I topped each bowl with some pine nuts and chopped cilantro.

Makes 6-8 servings