Chilled Carrot Ginger Soup

For my birthday this year Jack bought us a CSA membership. Every week we get a box full of fresh veggies. Our CSA even sends us emails with recipe ideas. They're even having a CSA member BBQ at the end of this month. This CSA rocks...we've heard complaints about other CSAs delivering the same thing week after week, not getting many veggies, etc. That is not the case for us! We have so much food we have to bring people over to our place for dinner to eat it all before it goes bad!

This week among some of the veggies we got in the delivery were a bunch of carrots, some red onions and some garlic.

Now I know that soups are usually a winter thing, but when I saw these veggies together I immediately thought carrot ginger soup! Because it's been so hot this weekend I made the soup and then chilled it while I helped Jack on a photo project.

Carrot Ginger Soup

-a bunch of carrots (a little more than a cup and a half) chopped
-2 tsp olive oil
-4 tbsp minced ginger
-2-3 cloves minced garlic
-3 cups veggie broth
-1/4 cup orange juice
-1/2 cup cream
-salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil over medium heat in soup pot. Add onions and cook until soft. Add ginger and garlic and cook for 2-4 minutes.

Add carrots, broth and orange juice. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until carrots are exceedingly tender. In batches puree soup in a blender. I add the cream, which is optional, when I begin the puree process.

Oh sweet ginger!

It's been a long time since a Tasty recipe has been posted. The house in Providence is officially rented, I have one final and a paper left before I complete my first year of grad school and Jack has been busy with shoots and the New York Photo Festival. 
As Jack attends the closing day of the festival, I have stayed behind to enjoy a day of cooking, cleaning and maybe even some studying. 

I saw this recipe in a magazine. Jack loves my carrot ginger soup, so I thought that I couldn't go wrong with ginger bread and ginger honey butter.I've run into a lot of people recently who claim to hate ginger. I too have not always been a fan, but this recipe and the carrot soup recipe have a sweet taste to them and not the bite that ginger haters seem to fear.

It taste great, but it's a little too cake like for me. I need to figure out a way to make it more bread-like. 

Bread:
8 tbsp. unsalted melted butter
2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 cup molasses
1 egg
1/2 buttermilk
1/4 cup hot water

Butter:
a little over half a stick of unsalted butter
2 tbsp honey
1 one inch piece of fresh ginger grated (about a tsp)
1 tsp cinnamon

Bread
-heat oven to 350
-stir together dry ingredients
-stir in melted butter
-add all remaining ingredients
-pour batter into 8 inch greased square pan
-bake 45-50 mins

Butter:
-combine all ingredients
-using handheld mixer mix ingredients well
-refrigerate at least half and hour