carrot, ginger, and coconut soup.

Or, more accurately, carrot-ginger-coconut-pumpkin soup, but I feel like that's an awfully long name for such a simple recipe.

While this soup was definitely inspired by similar ones floating around on Pinterest, the end result is my own, tweaking it and adjusting the taste and adding dashes of this and that until I felt it was right. Feel free to adjust it to your own tastes--this is incredibly versatile, and you could make it sweeter or more savory, depending on what you add in. It's like (vegetarian) Thanksgiving in a bowl!

What You Need:

- one 13.5 oz can lite coconut milk
- roughly 1 cup pureed, canned pumpkin
- 1 tsp freshly grated ginger root
- 1/2 red onion, chopped
- 6 whole medium-sized carrots, peeled and chopped
- sprigs of fresh rosemary
- olive oil, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, sea salt, black pepper, and honey

What You Do:

Start by drizzling a non-stick pan with olive oil. Heat the pan on medium/high, then add the onion. Let the onion sweat it out for a few minutes, then add the carrots. Keep a little cup of water on hand, and add just a tbsp. at a time when the pan gets too dry. Cover and let the onions and carrots sizzle away, stirring every few minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, pour in your can of coconut milk. Add a dash of cinnamon and a very tiny dash of cayenne pepper. Heat the milk on very low heat--you don't want it to bubble at all. Check your carrots. When you can pierce one with a fork, pour this mixture into the coconut milk. Add the pumpkin and ginger. Finely chop a little rosemary and throw that in as well. Remove the pot from heat and pour into a blender. Blend the soup, slowly at first. --->Make sure you vent the lid just a bit to let the heat out.<--- You may need to add just a little water to make it thinner. Once you have a smooth mixture with no chunks, pour it back into your saucepan. Heat again on low, and add a drizzle of honey, and salt and pepper. You may have to add what seems like quite a bit of salt, but just keep adding a pinch and tasting, until the savory quality of these vegetable comes out. Just go slowly--if you over-salt, you can't really undo it.

When satisfied with the taste of the soup, turn off the heat and cover it. I let it sit around for about 45 minutes or so while I baked a loaf of bread and made my husband a pizza. I, of course, don't really expect you to do those things. I would however recommend letting it sit for at least a half hour, so the flavors can deepen. Also, as is the case with most things, this soup really does taste better when closer to room temperature.

To serve, drizzle a bit of plain yogurt on top, then sprinkle with a bit of salt and add a sprig of rosemary. There you go! (By the way, I'd say you could serve at least four people this, especially if paired with some crusty bread, good, hard cheddar cheese, and some salty, oily olives, but that's up to you.)