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 SLOW COOKER

Estimated Time: 4½ hrs

Servings: 4 bowls of soup

Non-standard Cooking Utensils: A large pan.

Ingredients:

1.2 litres (2.2 pints) of beef stock

2 large carrots (lightly peeled and sliced thinly)

1 medium onion

1/3 turnip

Salt and pepper to taste

½ teaspoon of Cayenne pepper (optional, but makes a difference)

Cooking Method for Carrot Soup

1. Put all the ingredients except the carrots in a pan and simmer for three hours.

2. Add the sliced carrots to the soup and cook for a further hour.

3. Mash the carrots into the soup with a potato masher or fork.

4. Add the Cayenne pepper and salt and pepper, stir well.

Ideally the soup should be made the previous day, stored in the fridge and then reheated on serving.

5. Serve in a warm bowl.

THE CARROT
Click here for illustrated advice on growing your own carrots.
There is a wild carrot which grows in England; but it is white and small, and not much esteemed. The garden carrot in general use, was introduced in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and was, at first, so highly esteemed, that the ladies wore leaves of it in their head-dresses. It is of great value in the culinary art, especially for soups and stews.

Carrots can be used also for beer instead of malt, and, in distillation, it yields a large quantity of spirit. The carrot is proportionally valuable as it has more of the red than the yellow part. There is a large red variety much used by the farmers for colouring butter. As a garden vegetable, it is what is called the orange-carrot that is usually cultivated. As a fattening food for cattle, it is excellent; but for man it is indigestible, on account of its fibrous matter. Of 1,000 parts, 95 consist of sugar, and 3 of starch.—

The accompanying cut represents a pretty winter ornament, obtained by placing a cut from the top of the carrot-root in a shallow vessel of water, when the young leaves spring forth with a charming freshness and fullness.