WHAT TO EAT WHEN THE CLOUDS SCATTER INTO BLUE

These past few days have been rough and tumble -- but our family has come together in a big way, to honor the person we lost and take care of a life that once was. When I think about what happened this weekend, it seems like a blurry, teary, difficult, sad mush in my mind. I'm not really sure how, who or what happened, but it happened. It was nice that we could all be together, during this time, instead of D and I in far-flung Istanbul or Vietnam or far far away. We were here, apart of grieving and healing. I'm grateful for that.

Our appetite has been in and out-- big talks, sighs and tears aren't the best for working out what to feed ourselves. However, I found some semblance of solace and tenderness, putting around in the kitchen. Simplicity and yumminess seemed to govern my choices and a decent lasagna was made, a lot of peanut butter toast, and today, I rested on carrot soup. The rain finally stopped, the clouds made way for blues, and all of us kids dined on a soothing carrot soup. Soup is special, I prefer bowls full of one or two note flavors, roasted tomato, carrot (indeed), onion, lentil, etc. It went down easy with a great piece of walnut bread.

Roasted Carrot Soup
1 package of carrots (or one large bundle), roughly chopped
1 sweet potato, roughly chopped
1 onion, roughly chopped
generous amounts of olive oil, for roasting
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups veggie broth
1 cups water
2 cups almond milk
2 tbsp butter (i used earth balance to make it vegan)
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
generous salt and pepper
fresh thyme, for garnish

Method:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Chop veggies and arrange on two, parchment-lined, baking trays, in one even layer. Dress with generous glugs of olive oil, salt and pepper. Cook in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Remove from oven, blitz in food processor, in two batches. Add more of less stock, almond milk, water, to arrive at desired smoothness. Next, heat the butter in a small sauce pan on medium heat, add spices and saute for about one minute, until aromatic. Pour spice/butter mixture into pureed soup. Add minced garlic to soup. Season with salt and pepper. Reheat on stove, garnish with fresh thyme and more pepper. Delicious with a crusty slice of walnut bread.