I hate cooking! and a Sweet & Spicy Carrot Soup with Bread Sticks

I hate cooking! Well, not really… I hate cooking regular food. My favourite dish in the world is Dal and Chaval (rice) but I hate cooking it and its varieties every day. I haven’t cooked in a while and have started to miss the kitchen now, so I decided to give the hubby a break and cook once a week (magnanimous isn’t it :D)

The challenge is to enjoy cooking in the true sense – feel the textures, savour the aromas and get all excited to see the outcome. To hold me down to my resolution, I’m posting it up here. As we go along I will share my experience and recipes too! :)

I’ve had a bad sensitive tooth this whole week and haven’t eaten much. I just kept getting tired of chewing in only one side of the mouth. I really did get tired! So this week’s recipe is…

Sweet & Spicy Carrot Soup with Bread Sticks




Ingredients –

5 Peeled Carrots
1 Tomato
10 Almonds
1 dry red chilly (or chilly flakes would do)
3 cloves Garlic
½ tsp. Ginger Garlic paste
1 tbsp. Butter
1 pinch Jeera
1 Maggie Magic soup cube
Pepper (corns and powder)
1 cup Milk
1 pinch Rock salt
Salt to taste
1 Bread loaf

Preparation –

Boil carrots and tomato in three cups of water with ginger garlic paste and a little salt. (two whistles should do it)

After the veggies cool, remove skin of tomato and blend the carrots & tomato to a puree. (save stock)

Grind almonds to a fine powder, add the chilly and grind again. Finally add garlic and grind again, it should form a paste. Do not add water while grinding.

Heat the butter (adding a few drops of oil before you add the butter will prevent it from burning), put in a pinch of jeera and a few pepper corns. Add the almond paste to the butter and sort well.

When you get the aroma of roasted almonds with a twinge of chilly, add the carrot-tomato puree.

Mix it well and sort for a bit. Add the remaining stock and the soup cube. Let the mixture cook for 5 minutes. The colour will lighten a bit.

Add pepper powder to taste with a pinch of rock salt. Add 1 cup milk and salt to taste. Let the soup simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve hot and garnish with celery or coriander.

For bread sticks – cut strips from bread slices. (I find it easier and cleaner to cut the slices before roasting.) Roast the slices in an open pan on slow flame. This takes a while but gives a great crispy texture.