Easy Peasy Carrot Fennel Soup

I did a little bit of searching before I settled on this recipe.  The primary reason for my selection was because once I bought the fennel, I already had all of the other ingredients.  I was inspired to try this interesting combo by an old Books for Cooks recipe (book bought in London, in a little book shop in Notting Hill across the street from the travel book shop in The Movie) and then did some searching on the internet.  During that search I did in fact find another really interesting food blog, "My Man's Belly", which is now in my hall of fame to the right, too.  I plan to try Pamela's soup as well.  As always, if I vary the recipe, I write that far below. 
Ingredients


2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium fennel bulb, trimmed and thinly sliced; fronds reserved
1 1/2 pounds carrots, peeled and thickly sliced
1 large garlic clove, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/3 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup sour cream
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preparation

1.  In a 3-quart heavy saucepan, over medium heat, melt the butter until foamy. Add the fennel slices and cook, stirring, until softened. Add the carrots and garlic and cook another minute. Pour in 6 cups of water and season with salt. Simmer, covered, until the carrots are very tender, about 20 minutes.

2.  Remove the soup from the heat and stir in the orange juice, sour cream and reserved fennel fronds. Use the back of a spoon to mash some of the carrots and fennel, but leave the soup chunky. Season with salt and pepper.

http://events.nytimes.com/recipes/1772/2001/12/09/Carrot-and-Fennel-Soup/recipe.html

My changes:

Less water (4 cups) and in fact I was sorely tempted to use chicken stock but thought I'd give the actual recipe a shot first. 
Pre-cut thinly sliced carrots. 
Pre-minced garlic in a glass bottle (you know the kind).  In fact I also forgot to stir the darn stuff in the fennel/butter mixture which would have been better - I literally added it about 20 minutes into the last stage - the water reduction stage.
TIME:  I bet I had this simmering for an hour and a half.  I think the writer was nuts - 20 minutes would do nothing to those carrots, even the thin ones.  Let it simmer on down!
Probably closer to half a cup of sour cream.

I was skeptical, thinking it would be bland (water?) but it was actually very tasty.  This was even without settling overnight.  I am sure it will be even better tomorrow!

Let me know if you try it, I think you will like it.

(NUMBER SIXTEEN in 2010)

Ghosts of rice past...

Do your pots have the ghosts of rice in them?  By this I mean the result of setting the rice on simmer and then forgetting to set the timer.  When you wander back just a leeeeeetle too late you find a sticky mess in the pan which is not only inedible (unless you like truly sticky rice) but it's also a scrub job.  I've done this a few times (by few I mean "more than five but less than ten, I think") and my Calphalon pans now have little outlines of rice grains on the bottom.  (NB:  this isn't crusted food, it's literally an outline of the grains...)

At any rate, the intrepid chef wannabee made another rice dish this evening.  Along with it I had SNOMG II, based on my hamburger creation mentioned below.  No snow in the forecast this time, and, the main changes I made to the hamburger were advanced spices and instead of one cup of water I used one cup of white wine (White Bordeaux as a matter of fact). 

Here is the rice dish I had alongside it.  It is called Orange Cilantro Rice.

Ingredients

2 teaspoons butter (I used EVOO)
1/2 cup diced onion
1 cup uncooked long grain white rice
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (I used the chopped garlic you find in little bottles)
1/2 teaspoon onion powder (after all that onion, why more?)
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
salt to taste
1 1/2 cups orange juice
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in onion, and cook until tender. Mix in rice, and season with cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, cayenne pepper, and salt. Cook and stir until rice is golden brown. Pour in orange juice and broth, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 20 minutes.

Remove cooked rice from heat, and gently mix in cilantro to serve.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Orange-Cilantro-Rice/Detail.aspx

(NUMBER EIGHT in 2010)