Meatless Monday - How To Cook With Vegetable Scraps - Carrot Apple Soup Recipe

Save Those Veggies Scraps

Wondering what this is?

I call it my flavour jars.  Every time I chop up veggies I put the peel, tops, seeds etc into jars and freeze them.  Once I have a couple of jars in the freezer I know I have enough to make a vegetable stock.
I use sweet vegetables for my stock

• Carrots
• Parsnips
• Red Peppers

Those are my go to vegetables.  You can also have onions and a few savoury items. Example, sometimes I will add leeks and others like onions and celery.  Just stay away from bitter vegetables, unless you like more bitter than sweet.

The trick is to really wash (scrub) your vegetables before you prep them.  Then you know when you put the scraps in the jars there is no dirt left in the mix.

These jars are just the beginning of the delicious CARROT APPLE SOUP recipe below.

Vegetable Stock To Carrot Apple Soup

You will need

• 8 cups of cold water
• Vegetable scraps (see above) I used approximately 2 jars
• 2 thick carrots
• 2 apples
• Coarse Salt, preferrably Jamie Oliver Thyme, Lemon And Bay Salt
• 2 cooking pots
• Mesh sieve / strainer
• Slotted spoon
• Stirring spoon

1. Start by putting your COLD water in a pot big enough to handle these ingredients.
2. Add the jar scraps.
3. Next peel both carrots, with the carrot peel landing in the pot.
4. Cut carrots into big chunks (see image below)
5. Put carrot chunks into the first pot (they will help keep all the veggie scraps from rising out of the pot.
6. Add salt a few grinds of the salt. Because I am a Jamie Oliver Food Revolution Ambassador I like to use Jamie Oliver Thyme, Lemon And Bay Salt it adds some zest!
7. Turn burner on high and get the stock heated.  When it is almost boiling turn down to medium heat.  You will know when it is almost boiling as you will see a bubbly foam begin to form.
8. Let cook for half an hour. Resist the tempation to stir the pot.
9. While it is cooking wash the apples, core and chop them into small thin pieces like the image below.  I leave the peel on because it gives you some extra fiber.
10. After half an hour, use the slotted spoon to remove your carrot chunks from the stock and place in the second pot. You may have to dig a little with the slotted spoon if your carrot chunks got to the bottom of the stock mix.
11. Now place your strainer over the pot like in the image below
12. Slowy start pouring your stock mix into the strainer until all the liquid is poured out of the stock mix.
13. You can now remove the strainer and first pot from the cooking area.
14. Turn the second pot with only the carrot chunks and strained stock on high and then immediately add the chopped apples.  Because the carrots were partially cooked in the first pot, this really cuts down on cooking time.  Once the pot begins to boil turn down to medium-low and let it cook until the carrots are tender enough to get pureed in the blender.
15. Turn off stove and pour contents of the second pot into the blender. CAUTION it will be hot and may splash!  It's better to puree in smaller batches. 
16. Set second pot back on the stove but leave the stove off.
17. Put the lid on the blender, but becareful as the steam will want to make it pop off. Puree the mix.
18. While you may be tempted to pour the soup from the blender pitchter right into bowls, it's not a good idea as the majority of the thicker puree is at the top and the liquid puree is at the bottom of the blender pitcher,. Instead pour it back into the second pot and give it a good stir, then serve it into bowls.
19. This receipe as you can see it made 4 cups of soup.