Cold Curried Carrot and Coconut Milk Soup (Page 88)

RECIPE #1022

• Date: Thursday, September 10, 2009 -- 9pm
• Location: Bloomington, IN
• Kitchen: My Apartment
• Dining Companion: Matty
• Recipe Rating: B+
  

The other day I was looking through my project statistics at the bottom of the Project Index site that Alex set up for me, and I was surprised to see that the Soups section is one where I am starting to fall behind. It seemed crazy because I love soup! I love making soup. I love eating soup. How could the Soups section be going so slowly? But a brief flip through the section in The Book reminded me: the first 15 recipes in the section are for cold soups. I love soup, but I love my soup hot! Aside from cold sour cherry soup (which is pretty awesome) I have never met a cold soup that I really loved. It's been hot in Indiana lately though, so I thought I should take this opportunity to make some cold soup. I started by cooking scallions, onion, ginger, curry powder, salt, and pepper in a saucepan. I added carrots and chicken stock, covered, and simmered until tender. Then I added coconut milk and pureed it with my immersion blender (I love that thing!). I seasoned with lime juice and chilled until cold. The verdict: it was pretty good, but my first thought was, "I would like this better served hot!" Carrots and ginger always make a nice combination, and the pairing was well balanced in this soup. The addition of coconut milk rather than cream or milk gave the soup a bit of an Asian taste, which the lime juice enhanced. I would have liked it quite a bit as a hot soup. As a cold soup I could take it or leave it.

The recipe is here.

What a lovely weekend! This weekend it was my special gentleman's turn to travel, so instead of driving to Michigan I stayed in Indiana and he came to me! On Friday night we celebrated the three year anniversary of our first date with a delicious dinner at Restaurant Tallent. We ate until we were ridiculously stuffed, and everything we ordered was completely wonderful. Since we have been traveling so much we hadn't been back to Tallent since we had our wedding reception there -- it was fun to be reminded of that celebration.

On Saturday we had a relaxing day -- I did a bunch of cooking. It's going to be a busy week, so I wanted to get some cooking from The Book out of the way this weekend. Then on Saturday night we went over to Mike and Teresa's to celebrate Mike's birthday. They grilled tons of delicious meat, and we had another huge meal! It was really fun. Hamburgers, lamb, guacamole, beer, ice cream cake... Yum!!

After a weekend of eating, this morning we went for a long run. I cut back to 16 miles this week (I wasn't in the mood for another 20 miler this weekend). The run went really well. It's hot here, but 16 miles still felt pretty easy, and even at the end I wasn't suffering too much. It gives me hope that in a month and a half I will be able to make it 26.2! After my long run I ate some Taco Bell, took a shower, and then a nap. We ate another big dinner tonight -- this time one we made ourselves: chicken club sandwiches and shrimp dumplings.

Now I am feeling refreshed and ready for the week ahead!