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I noted over here that my darling's daughter recently gave me a bunch of twice-baked potatoes, frozen and vacuum sealed. Tonight's dinner was one potato half, with her special cream cheese / potato filling, and some of last night's roasted vegetables. One half strip of bacon over the top added a nice bit of salty goodness. This has to be one of the easiest and most filling microwave dinners I've made in a long time!

My darling's daughter and her family live in western Minnesota, where the potato crops are being harvested. They discovered a farm that allows people to come dig their own potatoes after the harvester has gone through. I think she said the potatoes are free. They came home with gunnysacks full of freshly-dug potatoes, and sent me home with a 5-gallon bucket worth. In addition, she had already made, frozen and vacuum-sealed many batches of twice-baked potatoes. She packaged them in pairs for easy parceling out. She sent me home with a box of these, too! An interesting side note: at least in that area, the spuds are harvested for processing as potato chips (and possibly some other potatoey treats). The harvester is set to take only certain sizes of potato and leave the rest behind. The family said there were rows and rows of potatoes to be dug freely, but they only made it partway down one row before they had their gunnysacks filled. It's a bonanza for the folks who can come get the potatoes, but at the same time seems mind-bogglingly wasteful. I hope some food shelf folks in that area have helped collect some of the bounty.

My carrot soup doesn't use cream. I don't really have a recipe as such and wing it each time. But basically: Onions, fresh ginger and carrots fried till softening. Add chicken (or veg) stock, salt and white pepper and cook till vegetables are melting. Add ground coriander and blend until almost but not totally smooth. I use my Bamix blltzer. Serve with a topping of carrot tops as garnish. Never had any complaints. In fact, the first time I made it for my friend J she ate three bowls!

I have not made it, but this was a bit of a thing for a while.

Our Canadian Thanksgiving is long over, but you can't have turkey and all the dishes without Brussels Sprouts!

Sorry, lindag, but I didn't find Ina Garten in that recipe. But I did find Ina Garten Carrot Ginger Soup

I have always bought it, either from a juice bar or in the refrigerated juice section of the grocery store. I think Trader Joe's might carry bottled carrot juice, but don't quote me on that.

@JAZ, how would you suggest one makes carrot juice (if one doesn't own a juicer)? TIA.

@weinoo dont know that much about rye , nor Pikesville but it appear in this book : an excellent read Arrzona territory 1880's or so. adds some colour to your next Manhattan

I know carrot and ginger soup is really popular, but personally, I'm not a fan. I guess because carrots are so sweet, the ginger makes the soup seem like a dessert to me.

I came across this recipe from Ina Garten Ginger carrot soup

just up the vanilla a bit, that's what the rum contributes anyway IMO. You could always just leave it out as well

Here's a recipe I developed a while back for NPR's Kitchen Window blog, back when that existed. It was based on an amuse bouche I had at a San Francisco restaurant, carrot soup with chive oil and vanilla. I know the vanilla seems odd, but it works. https://www.npr.org/2012/04/03/149928477/carrot-soup

It really is crazy! Callebaut 811 is 430/20kg at my local restaurant supply store. That's a 5.5$ jump per kg in 3 months. That's the most offensive one as it's nearly half sugar. And there is an expected price hike in January! Valrhona is something else entirely, I've been trying to move on from most of their products. They do a good job keeping the sugar lower in some of them though which is why they still have a grip on me. Ivoire has nearly doubled in price in the last year. And it started to skyrocket before all the ridiculous US tariffs.

I have no idea what that looks like! 😄

We've decided we will go out again this year. Last year was wonderful though not a single one of us ordered the traditional turkey dinner.

Why not use rum extract? It's pretty powerful so you wouldn't use three tablespoons full. Probably 1/2 to 1 tsp with the rest made up of water.

I used to make a carrot soup that was basically Carrots // some red onion // then , some Patak curry paste . there are various blends . all work use the paste not the simmer sauce. and adding low fat cottage cheese for some creaminess . all blended until smooth . so , curried carrot soup.

I have had this recipe for over 30 years and don't remember where I got it from. But, it continues to get rave reviews for such a simple soup. Thyme Carrot Soup 6 cups chicken stock 1½ lbs carrots 6 tbps unsalted butter 1 onion, minced ½ cup heavy cream 1½ Tbsp fresh thyme, minced (1 ½ tsp dried) freshly grated nutmeg Salt and pepper In a large sauce pan combine 6 cups of chicken stock (or tinned chicken broth) and 1½ lbs of carrots cut into 1” pieces. Bring the stock to a boil and simmer the carrots, covered for 20 minutes or until tender. In a food processor fitted with a steel blade or in a blender, purée the mixture in batches and force the mixture through a food mill into another large sauce pan. In a small skillet, cook onion, minced in unsalted butter over moderate heat, stirring for 3 minutes or until it is softened. Add the onion to the sauce pan with the cream, thyme and freshly grated nutmeg. Salt and pepper to taste. Bring the soup to a boil and simmer it for 5 minutes. Let soup stand, covered, for 5 minutes to let the flavours blend, ladle it into heated bowls and garnish each serving with minced fresh thyme. Serve 4-6

How about apple juice or non alcoholic cider?

My wife and I went to Ruth’s Chris in SF whenever we were there. It’s something we started doing on our honeymoon. bTW: Yank Sing was the other tradition.

I couldn’t wait for Thanksgiving so I cooked a turkey a couple of weeks ago. I bought a few backs and made stock for the gravy. I’ve got a couple of pints for the real day.

I've never made carrot soup myself because I'm not a fan of cream soups but I did have some at a friend's house about 25 years ago that was delicious. I called her and she said that the recipe was from Gourmet magazine and she no longer had it but she did go to Google and review quite a few recipes for me. She said that this one was closest to what she had done. She also remembered though that she didn't have any fresh ginger so she used powdered Ginger.

how do you like the nonobond? I just ordered a couple of skillets. I attended a boot camp at Copia and the entire kitchen was Hestan. The cookware wasn’t the nanobond, though.

Hi all! I'm going to make Marie-Helene's Apple Cake from Dorie Greenspan. It calls for 3T of rum, but we're a non-alcoholic house. Was thinking of substituting just 1/4 t of almond extract (there's already 1/2 t of vanilla in the recipe) Any thoughts?