Recipe: Glazed Carrot Soup with Tequila and Lime

If you know me, you know that I love tequila.  I’ve been known to bring my own tequila to parties and we had tequila shots at our wedding.  We received an abundance of carrots one week and I wanted to make soup – I found this recipe for glazed carrots with tequila and lime in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and it seemed like a match made in heaven.  The recipe was a success – spicy in a way that I didn’t expect (especially since the only spice here is black pepper, but maybe it’s the sharpness of the lime).  This also made a lot of soup that took us a few days to finish.  Served with mushroom and manchego quesadillas, it made a great dinner for a chilly night.

Ingredients for the soup

• 6-8 carrots (1 1/2 pounds), peeled and sliced
• 2 T butter
• 1 t maple syrup
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 t grated lime zest
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
• 1/4 cup tequila (Cazadores is a great brand that’s easy to find and not too expensive, but tastes like it is)
• 1/4 cup water
• 6 cups vegetable stock
• chopped cilantro to garnish

Put all ingredients except for the stock and garnish into a big pot and turn the heat on high.  Sprinkle with salt & pepper.  When the mixture boils, turn the heat down to medium low, cover and let cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Uncover the pot and raise the heat.  Stir the carrots around until the liquid evaporates.  Lower the heat and cook until the carrots are very tender.  If the carrots brown too much, add a little stock to the bottom of the pan.  Once the carrots are tender, add the stock and bring to a boil.  Stir the carrots around and make sure to dissolve any fond that developed on the bottom of the pan (those caramelized yummy bits).   After the soup boils, turn the heat back down to low and let cook for another 10 minutes or so.  Puree in batches in the blender (the blender will make a smoother soup than a food processor) and return to the pan.  Or if you’re lucky enough to have an immersion blender, use that to make the soup silky and smooth.  Garnish with the cilantro.  This soup is also very good with a dollop of sour cream (but what isn’t made better by sour cream, seriously!).

Ingredients for the quesadillas

• 4 corn tortillas
• 1 jalapeno, minced
• a few mushrooms, sliced
• a couple handfuls of dandelion greens, chopped
• cilantro, chopped
• grated Mexican manchego cheese (different than Spanish Manchego, softer and more melty)
• sour cream to garnish
• salsa to garnish (we got some great bottled taco sauces from my brother that his neighbor makes, I’ll figure out the name and insert it later)

This recipe is for 2 quesadillas, but you can make as many as you want by adjusting the amounts.  Saute the mushrooms and jalapeno together until cooked.  Add the greens and continue cooking until wilted.  Sprinkle in some cilantro into the mixture.  Warm the tortillas on your pancake pan on both sides.  Once warmed through, layer cheese, then veggies then a little more cheese on tortilla and top with second tortilla.  Repeat with other quesadilla.  Once the tortilla starts to brown, flip over and toast other side.  Slice with a pizza cutter, top with sour cream, salsa, and more cilantro and enjoy!