Carrot cake muffins

I like the humble carrot. I wouldn't say that it's my favourite vegetable, but it's certainly one of the most useful. I put it in almost everything – pasta sauces, soups, stews, stir fry, sandwiches, roasts and salads as well as eating it raw by itself or with dips.

Carrot juice is probably my favourite juice, although I don't drink it often due to the amount of carrots needed to make a cup (plus I don't have a juicer). And carrot cake? Carrot cake has got to be one of the best cakes ever. Foodtimeline says that carrot cake was most likely descended from Medieval carrot puddings, where they were used due to the natural sweetness (because sweetners were expensive). Carrot cake was around here and there since that time, and recipes for cakes with a cream cheese icing started to appear in the 1960s.

This recipe was adapted from Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion. The original recipe called for plain white flour and walnuts. I used wholemeal flour instead, because one of my favourite things about carrot cake is the nuttiness. Because I don't like walnuts and therefore never have any in the pantry, I substituted pepitas.

I made muffins instead of a big cake and ate them over a few days - they were a great mid-morning snack.



Simple carrot cake

Adapted from Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion

125 g self-raising wholemeal flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
2/3 cup olive oil
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups finely grated carrot
60 g roughly chopped walnuts or pepitas

Preheat oven to 180 degree C and grese an 18 cm springform tin or 6 cup muffin tin. Mix flour, sugar and spices. Add oil and eggs and beat in a food processor or an electric mixer for 1 minute. Stir in carrot and walnuts/pepitas. Spoon into prepared tin and bake for about 1 hour (less if making muffins). Cool in tin before turning out.

When cold, dust with icing sugar mixed with ground cinnamon or ice with cream cheese mixed with a touch of icing sugar and lemon juice.

Carrot & Lentil soup

This soup was a failed attempt to make pumpkin soup. I started the soup off by sweating some onions and garlic, only to cut into my pumpkin and find that it was rotten! I had bought it a couple of weeks earlier and it had been sitting on my bench too long. Gak.

Damn! I had been looking forward to a big bowl of soup and had even bought some nice bread especially for it. Then I remembered a recipe I had seen in the Women's Weekly Great Vegetarian Food cookbook that I had borrowed from the library. I had noted this recipe because I'm always looking for new ways to cook lentils (which I love).

On to Plan B: I salvaged my onions and garlic and turned them into this carrot and lentil soup instead. I didn't have any celery or buttermilk so I left them out. Nor did I put in a full kilo of carrots. The next time I make it I'll make sure I put in more than a kilo of carrots for a more intense carrot flavour as mine didn't taste very carroty. So, one rotten pumpkin and almost a kilo of carrots later, I had this beautiful looking soup. Here's the recipe:

From the Women's Weekly Great Vegetarian Food cookbook.

Ingredients:
1.125 litres (4 & 1/2 cups) vegetable stock
2 large brown onions (400g), chopped finely
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon ground cumin
6 large carrots (1 kg), chopped coarsely
2 trimmbed sticks celery (150 g), chopped coarsely
2 cup (500 ml) water
1/2 cup (1oog) brown lentils
1/2 cup (125ml) buttermilk

1: Heat 1/2 cup stock in large saucepan; cook onion, half of the garlic and cumin, stirring, until onion softens. Add carrot and celery; cook, stirring, 5 minutes.

2: Add remaining stock and the water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, about 20 minutes or until carrot softens.

3: Blend or process soup, in batches, until smooth; return soup to pan. Add lentils; simmer, uncovered, about 20 minutes or until lentils are tender.

4: Stir buttermilk into hot soup and serve.