gingered carrot soup: no dill!

It seems as if every recipe for carrot soup has to use dill. It's true, sweet carrots and tart dill do make a wonderful combination. But I love my own recipe, which has an unusual component: crushed rosemary! Who'dathunkit? But it makes a lovely difference in this favorite recipe.

The bonus about this soup (and many cream soups) is that it can be made in advance all the way up to the point of adding the cream, then chilled and kept in the fridge for as much as three or four days before reheating and adding the cream. It makes for a wonderful, fresh-tasting soup that nobody will believe hasn't been made just minutes before.

Even after the cream has been added, it reheats nicely. The Huz loves to take this to work for lunch, with some bread or blue corn tortilla chips and (always) something for dessert. He says it holds him nicely till dinner. If you saw how much he eats, you'd say it would hold you nicely, too! (I'm not saying that behind his back, he would say it himself. Tall, skinny, and voracious. I seriously covet his genes and metabolism.)

1 c chopped onion
¼ c. butter or margarine
4-½ c carrots, sliced
1 large potato
2 cans chicken broth (total 29 oz)
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp dried rosemary, crushed
1 T honey (more if carrots are not sweet)
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper

2 c whipping cream

• In a 5-qt Dutch oven, saute onion in butter until tender.
• Add carrots, potato, broth and ginger.
• Cover and cook over medium heat for 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender.
• Cool 15 minutes.
• Puree in small batches in a blender or food processor until smooth.
• Add remaining ingredients except cream
• You can make the soup up to this point and refrigerate it or hold it on a warm burner.
• Just before serving, add cream and heat through.

This is my entry for the Weekend Cookbook Challenge AND Sweetnick's ARF (Antioxidant Rich Foods)/5 A Day Tuesday.