With my grocery shopping day still 24 hours in the future, I was going to finish off the contents of my pantry which consisted of one bag of carrots, a few small onions and a stick of butter . Right away my mind turned to carrot soup and Mollie Katzen.
In case the name Mollie Katzen doesn’t ring a bell allow me to make the introduction. Back in the seventies Mollie cooked at Moosewood restaurant, a cooperative vegetarian café in Upstate New York. One day she brought her calligraphic pen and sketch pad into the kitchen. The result was The Moosewood Cookbook which is still listed among best selling vegetarian cookbooks of all time.
It’s hard to imagine how a handwritten black and white cookbook lacking even a single photograph became such a smash but Moosewood and all of it’s sequels have a special ingredient—Mollie, her heart and soul which she pours into her writing and cooking along with the ample amounts of oregano, basil and thyme.
Who else would preface a chapter on meals for one with a “pep talk for solitary eaters,” or offer bread baking instructions telling you to give the dough a “thawp” and then later on a pinch it to test that it feels like a baby’s earlobe!
Like many ageing boomers, Mollie’s cookbooks were first I ever owned. Though my vintage “Moosewood” and “Broccoli Forest” have long ago lost their bindings these books introduced me into the world of cooking and I’d never throw them away..
After this carrot soup, savory, velvety, delicious healthy and easy, I hope to be visiting those yellowed pages once again.
So here it is my slightly streamlined version of Mollie Katzen’s Carrot Soup, tweaked from “The Moosewood Cookbook.”
2 lbs (or 1 kilo) carrots
4 cups of stock (yes, I used onion soup powder because I didn’t have real stock, Mollie would be horrified but that’s the truth!)
Cook the carrots in the stock until soft.
Chop 2 small onions 2 small cloves of garlic and saute together in two tablespoons of butter until clear .Then combine with carrot/stock mixture. Puree with stick blender. Add one cup of millk or yogurt or sour cream. Heat very slowly so the milk doesn’t curdle
This freezes well.
Serves five.
