"14 Carrot Gold" Soup

I’ll admit it. I got this idea because I have a terrible sense of humor that is mostly comprised of puns. But now that the weather is becoming colder and colder, I wondered, “Could I actually make this a thing?”

This soup is a great source of fiber and a full serving of vegetables!

Makes four bowls of soup! Yum!

These are the ingredients you will need:

• 14 baby carrots
• 2 large parsnips
• 14.5 oz broth (I used chicken)
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 cup half and half

Optional

• Sour cream
• Edible gold glitter/gold flakes

Kitchen Equipment

• Cutting board
• Vegetable peeler
• Knife
• Large bowl
• Steamer
• Blender
• Large saucepan
• Spatula

Parsnips are a pretty interesting vegetable. At first glance, they probably look like albino carrots, but they're actually sweeter than a carrot.

To prep them, first peel the skin using a vegetable peeler.
You'll notice that they have a large, round stem at the top. Cut this off.
Cut up the rest of the parsnip. Start off at the skinnier end, cutting the rounds in two. Once you've gotten to the bigger parts of the parsnip, you can cut the pieces into 4.

Baby carrots are convenient in that they're already skinned.

All you have to do is cut the carrots into thirds. 

In order to cook the carrots and parsnips, we're going to steam them for 8-10 minutes, or until tender.

To test this, take a toothpick and stab one of the veggies. If the toothpick easily punctures it, then they're ready.

Now, you'll want to puree the parsnips and carrots to create a uniform, smooth veggie mix.

I don't own a blender, so I mashed them first and then proceeded to blend with a hand blender.

If you're using a blender, go ahead and dump everything in there along with 1 cup of chicken broth.
If you're using a hand blender, blend the veggies little by little and add 1 cup of chicken broth gradually.

Make sure your vegetables are silky smooth, otherwise you'll have chunky soup!

To start off with, put the pan on medium to high heat.

Drop in the butter, flour, and other seasonings. Let the butter slide around. 
Then, pour in the half-and-half, all at once. 

Once the half-and-half starts to bubble up, you're ready to move onto the next step.

Once the half-and-half is bubbling, you can plop in your carrot/parsnip puree.

Mix it around and make sure it's fully combined. It looked kind of light-colored to me, so I added a few more carrots to give it the more orange-y color.

Add in the rest of the chicken broth.

Cook for a few more minutes until all ingredients are fully combined. 

To garnish with sour cream, take a sandwich bag (you don't need one with a zipper) and plop in a dollop of sour cream. Snip off a corner with scissors and you have your very own makeshift pastry bag!

I like to draw a swirl and then dollop some sour cream in the center, but you can draw whatever designs you want.

You can also garnish with sprinkles! I used little gold star sprinkles from Wilton, but you can use whatever shapes/colors you want. Since they don't contribute to flavor, they're purely decorative.

Taste: This soup is pretty filling and is a vegetably sweet. It tastes great warmed up, and the sour cream is a lovely complement!