Curried Carrot Soup

I swiped this recipe from the Martha Stewart website. I wasn't exactly thrilled with the results. The flavor didn't have much depth and seemed kind of boring to me. And it looked like baby food. I think the Curried Pumpkin Soup posted on this blog earlier is much much better. Here's the recipe if anyone wants to try it and/or tweak it.




Curried Carrot Soup

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon curry powder
Coarse salt and ground pepper
2 cans (14 1/2 ounces each) reduced-sodium chicken broth (about 3 1/2 cups)
2 pounds carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 to 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh cilantro, for garnish (optional)

Directions

Heat butter in a Dutch oven or large (4- to 5-quart) saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, curry powder, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is soft, about 5 minutes.

Add broth, carrots, and 3 cups water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover, and simmer until carrots are tender, about 20 minutes.

In a blender, puree soup in batches until smooth; transfer to a clean saucepan. Add more water to thin to desired consistency. Reheat, if necessary. Stir in lemon juice. Serve garnished with cilantro, if desired.

I am going to bake a cake!

That's right. I've officially lost my mind. I'm always on the lookout for something just a bit off the beaten - or in this case - the eaten path. So, I ran across this recipe for Orange Cornmeal Cake. It is not an orange flavored cornbread. It's a cake. As in dessert. As in the thing I've declared I hate. But it's the texture of cake I hate. So, I'm going out on a limb here. This recipe comes from Martha Stewart. You can watch the how to video here. I'm still searching for sanding sugar. Maybe the bakers of the world can help me out on this. Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

Update: The cake is finally baking. It smells very - orangy. I hope that's a good thing. I had some issues which I suppose stem from being a non-baker. First, the recipe says all pupose flour but then just cornmeal. Do they not know that cornmeal is also self rising and all purpose? I had self-rising so that's what I used. I'm a bit nervous since I also used baking powder and salt but I figure with the all purpose flour I needed to. I used turbanado sugar on top. It looked coarse, which I think was the point. We'll see what happends...

I took the results to a friend's house. Everyone seemed to like it. I thought it was okay, but given that I don't enjoy cake I'm not sure what that means. It was nice. Not spectacular. I wonder if using regular cornmeal would have had a different result. As it was it was pretty dense, which I think I prefer. I would describe it more as a coffeecake. Oh, and I only baked it 30 minutes. Any more time and I would have had a dry crumbly mess.

Ingredients
Serves 8

1/2 cup olive oil, plus more for pan
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar, plus 1/3 cup for topping
1/2 cup dry white wine, (or orange juice)
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Finely grated zest of 1 orange
Orange segments, for serving (optional)


Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Brush bottom and sides of an 8-inch round cake pan with oil; line bottom with a round of wax or parchment paper, and brush paper with oil.
In a large bowl, whisk together oil, eggs, 1 cup sugar, and wine until smooth. Add flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, and orange zest; whisk gently to combine.

Pour batter into prepared pan; sprinkle top evenly with remaining 1/3 cup sugar (topping will be thick). Bake until cake begins to pull away from sides of pan and a tester inserted in center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes.

Cool in pan 20 minutes. Run a knife around edge of cake; invert cake gently onto a plate, and remove parchment paper. Reinvert cake onto a rack to cool completely. Serve with orange segments, if desired.