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Seasonal Family Almanac: Recipes, Rituals and Crafts to Embrace the Magic of the Year
Carrot, Coconut & Tarragon Soup
December 30, 2014
Lunch
Every month in 2016 I’ll share four recipes as part of Dr. John Douillard’s 3-Season Diet Challenge. My intention is to help you discover the glow we can feel – inside-out – when we eat with the rhythm of the seasons. Each new harvest brings us into balance with the sun, snow, warmth, cold and other changes in the natural world and in our bodies. Starting with this recipe, I invite you to join me in savoring this month’s flavors while experiencing the personal transformation that can come from this ancient Ayurvedic approach to food! (Find more 3-Season Diet Challenge recipes in the categories to the left (under “Recipes”) or in the search bar above.) Enjoy!
Oh lordy lord. What am I to do? I just polished off the very last batch of carrots and parsnips from my CSA. I am now just down to beets. BEETS. That’s it folks. If you haven’t had a CSA before, let me describe what this feels like.
A CSA means “community supported agriculture.” It is a weekly share (a box or bag) of farm-fresh produce from real, kick-ass farmers that I actually know (yes!) who grow and harvest my vegetables once a week right before I pick them up from a beautiful or tasty location. In the Summer it’s at the farm, in the Winter it’s at my favorite deli and butcher shop, The Piggery.
Sure I get this and that from the grocery store from time to time. No way in hell am I about to cut out lemons, avocados, clementines, pineapples and other gifts of nature. Nope, not me! But, when the mainstay of one’s diet becomes the freshest, tastiest and most unique varieties of vegetables for nearly 9 months of the year, it feels like betrayal in so many dimensions to eat entirely from lands beyond.
After 6 years as a CSA member though, I’ve learned a thing or two about East Coast Winter eating. The freezer is packed full of frozen greens, beans, herbs and other reminders of bygone seasons. But these supplies will peter out in two more weeks, I’m sure.
To prolong the inevitable, I made a monster batch of easy, bright, delicious soup to cuddle up to now, and save for a few more chilled evenings before Spring rears her blossomed head! This soup is like a pact. The Finger Lakes roots celebrate local while welcoming a cultural, exotic exchange with coconut and avocado. When it comes down to it, this soup is a marriage of my own passions.
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Carrot, Coconut & Tarragon Soup
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 10 servings
Ingredients
- Carrots – 6 cups, chopped
- Parsnips – 2 1/2 cups, chopped
- Coconut oil – 1/4 cup
- Ginger – 1 teaspoon, grated
- Stock – 64 ounces of stock
- Whole coconut milk – 1 (12-ounce) can whole coconut milk
- Tarragon – 1 1/2 teaspoon
- Avocado – 1 avocado
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- In a large baking dish, toss the carrots and parsnips with coconut oil and grated ginger. Roast for 25 minutes, until the vegetables are just tender.
- Meanwhile, heat the stock in a large soup pot. When the vegetables are ready, add them to the pot with the coconut milk and tarragon.
- Simmer the soup for 15 minutes. Remove from the stovetop and cool for about 10 minutes.
- Add the soup to a food processor and blend into a puree (or use an immersion blender if you have one).
- Transfer the soup back to the soup pot to reheat if it has cooled too much.
- Serving with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil or acorn squash seed oil, and a few wedges of avocado.
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