Friday, April 10, 2015

Creamy Carrot-Sumac Soup with Crispy Chickpeas and Shallots

sprung?
Creamy Carrot-Sumac Soup 
with Crispy Chickpeas + Shallots
warm enough to thaw my cold winter heart.


It's snowing as I type this. 
It has been spring for 19 days now and it's snowing. 
Half an hour ago I was wearing my heaviest winter coat. And a hat. And gloves.
Yesterday was 65 degrees. Tomorrow will probably feel like summer. 
Ugh.

Little known fact about me-- I will fall down in a spectacularly cartoonish manner at least once a winter. Taking a header on a patch of ice and pitching ass-backwards into a giant snow drift, or an equivalently embarrassing series of events.
But this year was different. 
Not because I spent the previous 11 months mastering my coordination skills, but because there was just too much damn snow.
Feet upon feet upon feet upon feet of snow. 
The sheer volume of which made falling down next to impossible.
Instead I spent two month rattling around endless ice and snow mazes (that used to be sidewalks) like a human pinball. 
Not necessarily better, but much less bruise-inducing.

Then the first day of "spring" came...
I accidentally wandered onto a continent-sized sheet of ice, slipped-- nearly dislocating both knees in the process, and dumped half a bag of groceries directly into the filthiest, deepest puddle of all time. 
And, just to add insult to literal injury, I tried to brace myself on a nearby snow pile but my arm went straight through to the still-frozen ground.
There I was, laying on the sidewalk with one arm stuck up to the shoulder in a pile of slush, one leg bent behind me, on the verge of tears, and wondering how bad it would be if I just slept there that night.
This is what spring in New England does to you.
It leaves you banged up (both in the head and on the body), pushing the borders of unhinged, and in need of some serious comforting.

It's the the soup-iest of soup weather.

bowl therapy.

crispy bits.


Soup:
1lb carrots (about 5-6), coarsely chopped
2 shallots, sliced into very thin rings
2 1/2c cooked chickpeas
4 cloves garlic, finely minced
2Tbsp olive oil
2tsp sea salt
1Tbsp sumac
2Tbsp ground cumin
3Tbsp fresh lemon juice
5-6c water

Toppers:
1c cooked chickpeas
1 shallot, thinly sliced
1Tbsp olive oil
2tsp sumac
2tsp cumin
1Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1-2tsp lemon zest
1/4tsp sea salt