Creamy Carrot Soup

Our trip to the Chicago Art Institute really inspired a soup bonanza this week! After we enjoyed the celery soup so much, I decided to make another soup that I had never made before. This time, carrot soup. In my bowl you see both the celery soup and carrot soup served together.  You can click on the link above to find the celery soup recipe.

This carrot soup recipe includes fennel seeds, leeks and thyme, all of which are favorites of mine. It also was fortuitous that my grocer was having a sale on bunches or organic carrots! I still had a little celery soup left when I made this so I decided to plate them together. It was a delicious combination, but the carrot soup was also delightful on its own. With the chilly weather we've been having,  I was so grateful to have these soups to warm my soul!

As I promised, here are a few more of the highlights that we saw at the Chicago Art Institute last weekend. I am so grateful my husband also enjoys art! He was the one who organized our trip to the museum last weekend.  How cool is that?

Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" - one of my husband's favorites:

The classic Grant Wood "American Gothic".  You can see the outline of the pitchfork echoed in the farmer's overalls.  Also, the farmer's unmarried daughter's dress is echoed in the curtains on the upper gothic window.

Back to the carrot soup!

Carrot Soup with Fennel and Thyme
Recipe adapted from Epicurious
Printable Recipe

Serves 4-6

3 tablespoons olive oil
8 medium carrots, peeled, chopped
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped leek (white and pale green parts only)
2 garlic cloves, chopped
Several sprigs of thyme
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
5 cups (or more) of chicken stock (can also use vegetable stock)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Additional chopped fresh thyme for garnish, if desired.

Note: Removing thyme leaves is not one of my favorite jobs. In soups and stews I prefer to simply add whole thyme sprigs. As the soup cooks, the thyme leaves fall off of the sprigs and the woody sprigs are removed before puréeing.

Place a large saucepan or stockpot over medium heat and add olive oil. Add carrots, onion, leek, garlic, thyme sprigs and fennel seeds; stir to coat. Cover and cook until onion is translucent, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes. Add 5 cups broth or enough to cover all of the vegetables and bring to a simmer. Partially cover the pot and simmer until carrots are very tender, stirring occasionally, for about 40 minutes. Cool slightly and carefully remove all of the thyme sprigs (the leaves will have dropped off into the soup). Working in batches, purée soup in blender (or, use an immersion blender right in the pot as I prefer to do). Return soup to pan. Thin to desired consistency with more broth. Season with salt and pepper. Can be made 1 day ahead.

Ladle hot soup into bowls and sprinkle with additional thyme, if desired.

Creamy Celery Soup and the Art Institute of Chicago~

We are very fortunate and grateful to live a 90 minute drive to downtown Chicago, where the shopping is amazing, restaurants and theatre are world class, and museums are some of the best in the United States. You are probably wondering how this relates to celery soup... I'll get to that in just a bit :)

Last weekend, since we had stayed overnight in Chicago for a wedding reception,  my husband and I were able to attend the member's preview of the reinstallation of Marc Chagalls' America Windows the next day.

The Art Institute removed Chagall's stained glass windows during construction of the new Modern Wing.  The windows were examined and restored during their five year absence. They were painstakingly cleaned with Q-tips and baby shampoo to remove the clouded layer of grime and dust that formed on them since their debut in 1977. They are beautiful again and they are installed so that the light shines through them gloriously.

Chagall had offered to create this work for the City of Chicago to commemorate the Bicentennnial of America and it's freedom of culture and religion and it was dedicated in memory of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley.


Afterward, we had a late lunch at the new restaurant in the Art Institute's Modern Wing called Terzo Piano.  My husband ordered the soup du jour, which was cream of celery. He mentioned several times how good it was.

Since he enjoyed the soup so much and I had also just seen a delicious celery soup posted by La Table de Nana, which had caught my eye, I decided to make some myself yesterday. Since I had never made celery soup before I researched and compared several recipes.  I decided on the one I will share with you. It turned out deliciously thick and creamy, even without the adding any cream! My husband said that this was even better than the soup he had a Terzo Piano.

I decided it would be fun to serve celery soup shots to my guests at Thanksgiving as an appetizer!  You can find similar-sized glasses for sale here.

I think the addition of the celery root is essential to this recipe.  It really adds a depth of celery flavor!

Creamy Celery Soup
Adapted from this recipe on Epicurious from Bon Appétit
Printable Recipe

Serves 6 (generously)

Note: The original recipe calls for sautéing the vegetables in butter. I used olive oil instead. I also didn't find the need to add cream to the soup as stated in the original recipe because it was creamy enough on its own after puréed. You could also make this using vegetable stock rather than chicken stock making it completely vegetarian. Made just as the recipe states, you will enjoy a delicious, celery flavor!

2 tablespoons olive oil
5 cups chopped celery
2 medium onions, chopped
1 1-pound celery root, peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 10-ounce russet potato, peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon celery salt
4-6 cups of low sodium chicken stock
1-2 teaspoons of salt
1/2 teaspoon or more of pepper (we like lots of pepper)

In heavy, large saucepan or stockpot add the olive oil and place over medium heat. Add the chopped celery and onions and cover and cook until very tender, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes. Stir in the pieces of celery root, potato, garlic, celery salt. Add enough chicken stock to cover the vegetables. Cover and simmer until all the vegetables are very tender, about 30 minutes. Purée in blender in batches, or, as I did, use an immersion blender right in the pot. Add salt and pepper to taste. Thin with more chicken stock, if necessary. Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.)

Serve with chopped celery leaves as a garnish.

Savoring Time in the Garden Sunday

Photos from my garden this past week. The last flush of roses, one of my favorite dahlias and a spider web I caught reflecting the sunlight.  This weekend my grandson, Mack, celebrated his first birthday. I made a pastel portrait of him to bring to his birthday party today.

Happy Birthday, Mack!

I'm joining Mosaic Monday at Little Red House.

Blooming Art - Part Two

The second part of my Art in Bloom tour at the Milwaukee Art Museum takes us to the galleries of Early European Art, 19th Century European Art, and American Art up to 1900.

This is Madonna and Child, painted around 1350 in Florence,Italy, which was at the very start of the great Black Plague in Europe. I like how the floral design incorporates the halos in the artwork...

Moses Presenting the Tablets of Law (French ca 1648)


Still Life with a Crab, Pieter Claesz (early 1600s)...

Look how the Gooseneck Loosestrife resembles the claws of the crab!

Corrado Giaquinto (1752) The triumph of Galatea...


Another favorite of mine, this design represents the suit of armour...


This was another favorite floral design interpreting Gustave Caillebotte's Boating on the Yerres (French, 1877)...one of the award winners of the show...


A floral interpretation of an Austrian settee circa 1815:


The Rivals (Little Kittens) 1885:



Tarbells' Three Sisters. I love this painting and I'm sorry I didn't get a decent shot of it and it's floral interpretation...


Lastly, here is one of my favorite art pieces in the museum called the Wood Gatherer (Pere Jacques), by French artist Jules Bastien-Lepage, 1881.


And, my loose floral interpretation of the piece :)


Hope you enjoyed my Art in Bloom tour!

Blooming Art at the Milwaukee Art Museum - Part One

Welcome to the second annual Art in Bloom event at the Milwaukee Art Museum! I was privileged to attend this beautiful event and a guided tour by my docent friend. Top local floral designers were chosen to participate and each had their art piece picked by lottery. Their job was to interpret the chosen art piece by creative use of flowers and their arrangement.



We enter Windhover Hall in the Calatrava wing of the museum and are greeted by our resident Chihuly blown glass piece which is approximately 20 feet high:



Windhover hall is very stark with its white floors, walls and ceilings overlooking blue Lake Michigan. You can enjoy the art or a simple lunch overlooking the lake. For this event, Windhover hall was chosen to be the starting point of the Art in Bloom exhibit. Three magnificent bronze sculpures greeted us with the floral interpretations of their stark white surroundings.






No flash photograph and no tripods are allowed in our museum so the low lighting resulted in many blurred shots :(

Our first stop is in the Bradley Exhibit which features modern art. The first is The Horseman by Marc Chagall and its floral interpretation...


A WWII German concentration camp survivor artist and floral interpretation. Our museum is known for it's collection of German WWII survivor art...



The Cock of the Liberation (of France by Nazis) by Picasso and floral interpretation...









I really liked this interpretation:



My favorite of the modern exhibit interpretations, a Georgia O'Keefe Poppies painting and floral interpretation:


Part Two coming soon:)

Dutch Split Pea Soup and a Dutch Masters Evening

The inspiration for making this Dutch Split Pea Soup is this handsome guy who lived from 1606-1674.  I had the most wonderful evening with him last night!

A dear friend, who is a docent at our art museum, asked me to join her for the members' opening lecture and exhibit preview of the new and exciting Jan Lievens Exhibit, a forgotten artist who was a contemporary of Rembrandt. It opens to the public today.

It was like attending a rock concert! We arrived over an hour before the lecture was to begin and there was already a huge line that had formed. The lecture was given by the Washington National Gallery of Art curator Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. I believe we are only one of three or four cities world-wide to host this wonderful exhibit.

Lievens was a friend of Rembrandt's, being born only one year later and in the same town in Holland. They may have even shared a studio. Lievens painted many portraits of Rembrandt which are featured in the exhibit. It was recently discovered that the man holding the pipe in the following painting is Rembrandt at the tender age of 17 which means Lievens would have done this painting when he was only 16!

Lievens was a brilliant artist whose massive paintings and career became overshadowed by that of Rembrandt's and thus, faded from importance and art history.

He was a prodigy at an early age. He painted the following portrait when he was only 14 yeas old! Can you imagine someone so young being able to depict the facial nuance and character of an older woman? The brush strokes seen in this painting are amazing in person.


The following painting of Rembrandt's mother was purchased by a local area physician in the 1950s thinking it was a Rembrandt. It is now known that it was actually painted by Lievens.


It was breathtaking to see so many of Lievens wonderful paintings face to face and so close you could have touched them. No cordons at our museum!
Hope you enjoyed my mini Lievens art lecture and exhibit :)

In honor of the Dutch Master, here is my favorite recipe for Dutch Split Pea Soup or Erwtensoep~


Erwtensoep (Dutch Split Pea Soup)
Adapted from a recipe in The Junior League Centennial Cookbook

1 pound dried split peas
1 shank or butt end of smoked ham (1-1/2 to 2 pounds)
3 large onions, chopped coarse
1 leek, thoroughly cleaned, halved lengthwise, and sliced crosswise
2 celery ribs, copped coarse
2 carrots, chopped coarse
1 potato, chopped coarse
2 teaspoons thyme
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
4 knockwurst, sliced (optional)
1 tablespoon hickory smoked salt (optional)
¼ cup chopped parsley

If the peas require soaking, soak overnight covered in water. Drain before starting the soup. Combine the ham with the peas and 3 quarts of water in a large Dutch oven or heavy pot. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and cook 30 to 40 minutes, skimming frequently.

Add the onions, leek, celery, carrots and potato. Add the thyme and season well with salt and pepper. Simmer slowly, uncovered, for about 5 hours or until very thick, stirring occasionally.

Remove the ham shank. Discard the bone and cut the meat into small pieces and return to the soup with the optional sliced knockwurst 30 minutes before serving. Add the optional smoked salt and stir in the parsley. Serve with whole-grain bread and sweet butter.

Serves 8