Cream of Carrot and Lentil Soup

How do you make a soup rich? 

By adding 24 Carrots (carats) to it. :)  

I am back from my cooking-and-photo-blogging hiatus to meet the 30 recipe challenge for 2010 :)  Here is the soup that is healthy, tasty, easy to make and perfect for this cold weather!

Recipe:

Carrots - 1 lb.

Lentils - 4 tablespoons 

Cumin - 1 tablespoon

Garlic - 1 clove

Milk  - 1 cup

Olive oil - 1 tablespoon

Water - 1,000 ml

Vegetable bullion (optional) - 1 (can use fresh vegetable stock instead, if available)

Salt - to taste

Pepper - to taste

Heavy cream (optional) - 1/2 cup

• Dry roast cumin, keep aside
• Heat olive oil, add half a tablespoon of dry roasted cumin (keep the remaining half for garnishing)
• Add minced garlic, chopped carrots, water (keeping 1 cup water aside), lentils.  I used yellow lentils.  Any variety of lentil works
• Boil 1 cup of water, add the vegetable bullion, dissolve it and add that water to the above mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste and milk
• Let the mixture boil for about 30 minutes on medium heat, until the carrots as well as lentils are soft and mushy
• Remove from heat, puree the above mixture in a blender/food processor
• Put the mixture back on stove and add heavy cream
• Add 1 tablespoon of lemon (optional).  Simmer for a few minutes and turn off the heat
• Garnish with heavy cream, roasted cumin and cilantro/parsley
• Serve piping hot.

Enjoy!