Recipe: Ginger Carrot Spinach Soup

In my cooking world, recipes are simply frameworks. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I followed a recipe exactly as printed. I typically look at a recipe and think, “Hmm…I wonder how adding this would taste?” or “Let’s substitute this instead.” or “Well, I ran out of that last week. I wonder what in my cupboards would work.”

My kitchen serves as a continuous science experiment. Sometimes I end up with something awesome! Sometimes they are simply edible. Either way, I definitely enjoy playing around with cooking experiences. This one happened to turn out well so I thought I would share.

Use this recipe as a framework, as well. The original recipe only called for a few carrots, no spinach, fresh ginger and parsley, no celery, no quina. The original also recommended pureeing it in a food processor. That’s more time and dish washing than I wanted to put in to it. Play with it, make it your own.

Regarding quinoa, I keep some frozen so I can use it whenever needed. I soak the seeds 8-12 hours before cooking, rinse, then cook. Works great to have it readily available.

• 2 pounds carrots
• 4 cups vegetable stock
• Celery (I use the leafy parts off the stalk)
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 cup – 1 cup chopped onion
• 2-3 handfuls of spinach
• 3 tsps ginger (recipe called for a 6″ piece of fresh giner)
• 2 Tbsp parsley (recipe called for fresh parsley to garnish)
• 1 – 2 cups cooked quinoa

Put all ingredients into a pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer about 25 minutes or until carrots are tender. Wah-lah! Done and delicious!

– Steph