Set some carrots aflame, make them your soup.

I really dig Occasions magazine. It like to read about all the newly-released alcohol I can't afford, and dream about the ones I will purchase someday. I also enjoy the recipes, usually created by local chefs and paired with wine, beer or spirits. While I often doddle and procrastinate for years before trying a recipe that I've clipped out or copied down, I made this recipe the day after I first read it. Roasted Carrot and Cumin Soup? It called to me. This one's incredibly easy.

About to set these carrots on fire!

I made mine with rainbow carrots, so the colour isn't a normal carrot orange but a deeper, more pumkiny hue. Root vegetables are very grounding, connecting us to our centre and helping us settle down and not be so flighty. Goes nicely with this time of the year, don't you think? These qualities are enhanced further when you roast them (the carrots, not the qualities). If you've got a bag of carrots (preferably local and doubly preferable-- unsprayed or organic), and a decently-stocked spice cupboard, you can make this soup right now. Get lost in a book or some work, and you'll blink before this soup is done. My carrots only took 40 minutes to roast, as I cut them pretty small, therefore shortening the time between being tempted by the awesome aroma of roasting carrots, garlic, and... oh wait. I used garlic in lieu of onions in this recipe, as Brucifer abhors onions. 

Cookin' this soup twice, gettin' all the beta carotene!

Here's how to roast garlic: Take a head of garlic and chop off the top so a little bit of each garlic clove is exposed. Rub the whole thing in olive oil. Cover it in foil. Chuck it on  the pan with the carrots in the oily spice rub. When the carrots are done, remove the foil from the bulb (careful, it will be hot-- let it cool some!), and squeeze the garlic up and out of the holes in the top of the  skins. The garlic will ooze out nicely (a bit sticky maybe, but I've still found this to be the best way). Puree the roasted garlic with the roasted carrots, the water or broth (less if you like it thicker) and you're golden. I also added some nutritional yeast to mine, for the extra vitaminions! 

This bowl of soup has a nipple.

Let me know if you make this soup. Carrot makes for good soup. I'll totally root for it!