Easter Bunny Soup

 

Today we are making soup for Easter Bunnies!

Every bunny loves a good carrot soup!  Personally, I have never had a carrot soup before.  It sounds kind of odd, but this soup turned out really well.  This is a carrot-ginger soup from Cook’s Illustrated magazine.

We start with carrots (natch).

And onions.

And then the good stuff.  This is candied ginger.  We had a little trouble finding it in the store (hint – it’s with the candy, not the spices!).

And some more ginger.  This is grated fresh ginger.

Onions, butter, ginger, and garlic are sautéed in our trusty cast iron pot.

In go the carrots with some water and thyme.  Soup always needs thyme (and time).

Now for the secret ingredient:  carrot juice.  Make sure you get pure carrot juice and not some juice blend (usually mixed with apple juice or something like that).  This stuff tastes just like a carrot.  Pretty wild!

Half of the bottle of carrot juice goes in the pot.

And then after about 20 minutes, we pureed with our immersion blender (so handy!) and added the second half of the carrot juice and a splash of cider vinegar.

Smooth and creamy, and filled with Fresh, carroty taste in every bite.  Just a hint of ginger (not too much).  I kind of wish there was more ginger flavor.  The carrot juice gives it a very fresh and bright taste.  We topped it with sour cream and some fresh chives.  Now go tell all your bunny friends!  And Happy Easter!

Spicy Buffalo Chicky Pizza

We love making pizzas at home.  This probably comes as no surprise to our avid fan base, since we seem to blog about it a lot.  I will therefore spare you all the details of HOW we make the pizza and focus more on WHAT WE PUT ON TOP OF THE PIZZA.  That is, after all, the most interesting part.

This week’s episode:  Buffalo Chicken Pizza.  It is rare for us to put chicken on a pizza.  I think we’ve done it only once before when we made a Thai Chicken Pizza (note to self…..need to blog about that….).  Anyway, I don’t entirely remember what inspired me, but I remember thinking that there’s got to be a way to turn buffalo chicken into a pizza!  The internet did not let me down.  I found lots of different recipes with all kinds of varieties:  barbeque sauce, Worcestershire sauce, Ranch dressing, no sauce, blue cheese, cheddar cheese…the list goes on.  Instead of following any recipe in particular, I cobbled together my own version.

I decided to go with blue cheese dressing as the base.  I definitely did not want a red sauce or a barbecue sauce on the bottom.  I thought about doing Ranch dressing, but I happened to already have a blue cheese dressing on hand.  I’m pretty sure blue cheese dressing is just Ranch dressing with cheese added to it, but whatever.  Note for next time!

Next up is the chicken.  I already had some cooked rotisserie chicken, so I just shredded up enough for one pizza.  I then added 2 tablespoons of melted butter and a TON of Louisiana hot sauce.   I was not shy with the sauce!

Some scattered red onion…not too much.

Spicy chicken….just enough.

Blue cheese…..lots!

That’s it folks!  This pizza is not hard.  It came out all gooey and melty.  Maybe a tiny bit unhealthy.

 

But see…we added some salad, so we got some nutrition after all.