carrots

This lemon ginger carrot soup is one of the easiest soups to make. Not only does it whip up quick, but the ingredients are items that I usually have on hand: carrots, onions, garlic, ginger, vegetable stock and tomatoes. I always have those items in my fridge. Also, this soup freezes beautifully because it does not contain any dairy ingredients. So, you can easily double the recipe and freeze some for later. The texture is so smooth and silky. And the lemon really pops!

It makes a perfect lunch on a snowy Sunday after you’ve had some fun on the snow or ice – skating, skiing, snowshoeing or tobogganing. There is no end to the fun you can have outside in winter.

Lemon ginger carrot soup is my favourite carrot soup recipe. I have made many variations of carrot soup over the years, but none of them were as satisfying as this one. I love the lemon in the recipe. It seems to lift the flavours and makes the carrots taste less heavy. I always use vegetable stock when making homemade soup. It’s super easy to make yourself and the ingredients are usually items that I have in the fridge.

Most people always think of soup as adult food. It can take awhile for kids to come around to enjoying soup – except maybe chicken noodle. Most kid’s seem to like that one. Perhaps because it’s about the only thing that tastes good when you’re sick. But soup doesn’t only need to be eaten when you’re stick. And you don’t have to be an adult to enjoy soup. Being a parent to two boys, I completely understand the difficulty in trying to get your children to try new foods.  When our boys were little we had all sorts of fun coming up with funny names for new dishes and using other fun strategies to encourage our children to try new dishes.

Here are a few tips that I remember when introducing new foods to children:

• Never force your child to eat anything that they are not interested in trying (dietitians, nutritionists, family doctors all say this. I can attest to this from personal experience. Which is why you will not find recipes on this blog about squash. Unless someone else writes it.)
• Put new foods on the table and ask you child if they would like to try some.
• Don’t get frustrated if they are not keen to try something new, sometimes it can take up to 3 times for a child to start to enjoy a food or even want to try.
• Have your children help you make dinner. Even for this soup they could: get the carrots out of the fridge, scrub or peel them; get the onions, garlic, lemons and tomatoes ready for you; they could stir the pot on the stove if they are old enough and there is an adult nearby to help; they could chop the carrots, if you’ve shown them how to correctly do that, etc. They could also set the table with bowls (instead of plates – kids get excited about new things).
• Read some books about cooking and eating. There are a lot of children’s books that centre around food. Quite often reading a book that incorporates cooking and eating can encourage your children to try new things. Here is a list of books you should be able to pick up from your library.  This list only includes books about soup, as that’s what my post is on today. I’ll try to dig up other books for future topics.

• Here is the list:
• Stone Soup by Marcia Brown
• Duck Soup by Jackie Urbanovic
• Chicken Soup with Rice by Maurice Sendak
• Cactus Soup by Eric Kimmel (mexican verison of Stone Soup)
• Perfect Soup by Lisa Moser
• Chicken Soup, Chicken Soup by Pamela Mayer
• Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert
• Delicious by Helen Cooper
• There’s a Giraffe in my Soup by Ross Burach
• Soup Day by Melissa Iwai

• If you have some space in your backyard, try planting a few vegetables such as carrots, spinach, zucchini or pumpkin. Pumpkin is great fun to grow because it is excellent for making soup as well as using for hallowe’en. Zucchini is also a fantastic vegetable to grow as it’s super easy and even from just a couple of plants, you will have loads of zucchini – and there are so many things you can make from zucchini.  If your backyard isn’t big enough to grow some vegetables, maybe you could share a plot in an allotment garden if you have one nearby. Tons of family fun.

Let me know if any of these tips work out for you. And let me know how your children enjoyed this soup.

In the meantime here are a couple of articles I enjoyed reading on the subject of encouraging healthy eating in children.

Teaching Your Children To Cook

Tips on Encouraging Children to Eat Healthy

Thanks for reading!

Recipe is adapted from Carrot Soup with Ginger and Lemon by Epicurious.com.

Print Recipe

Lemon Ginger Carrot Soup

Serves: 8

Cooking Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 stick butter
• 2 cups chopped onion
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped peeled fresh ginger
• 3 tsp minced garlic
• 3 pounds carrots, peeled and chopped
• 3 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
• 6-7 cups vegetable stock
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Instructions

1

Melt the butter in a large heavy pot on medium heat. Add the onion and saute for a few minutes.

2

Add ginger and garlic and saute until fragrant 1-2 minutes

3

Add the carrots, tomatoes and lemon peel and saute briefly for about 1 minute.

4

Add the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, put the lid on, but leave an opening, and simmer until the carrots are very soft. This will take about 20-30 minutes.

5

Let the soup cool a little bit. Then puree the soup in batches in the blender until very very smooth. Pour the soup back into the clean pot. Add the lemon juice. Add salt and pepper to taste.

6

Add a bit more stock if soup is too thick.