{"id":502,"date":"2009-01-07T08:30:28","date_gmt":"2009-01-07T13:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bayareaveg.org\/blog\/?p=502"},"modified":"2009-01-05T23:57:27","modified_gmt":"2009-01-06T04:57:27","slug":"eat-your-carrots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bayareaveg.org\/blog\/2009\/01\/07\/eat-your-carrots\/","title":{"rendered":"Eat Your Carrots: Carrot-Walnut Cake and Carrot-Red Lentil Soup"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had a craving for carrot cake last week, so I pulled up this recipe<\/a>. It looked a little boring, but I figured it couldn\u2019t be that bad\u2026and I was in a hurry.<\/p>\n

I decided to double it so I could bring one cake to the office and keep one at home to score points with the honey. I purchased twice the amount of carrots, and grated them in my food processor. Unfortunately, I did not purchase twice the other ingredients! The result? Keep reading for a carrot and lentil soup recipe.<\/p>\n

The cake came out delish. In fact, it\u2019s one of the best carrot cake recipes I\u2019ve tried! Who would have guessed? I didn\u2019t make the frosting. I followed the cake recipes just as it was listed and it came out moist and perfectly spiced. Yum. Just goes to show that fancier is not always better!<\/p>\n

Grated carrots oxidize easily, especially if they\u2019re not peeled (mine weren\u2019t). So I had to use up my extras right away. I made a salad with grated carrots sprinkled in, but I still had a bunch left over. A heaping cup.<\/p>\n

I scrounged in the cupboards and came out with one cup of red lentils, one potato, some ginger and some miso.<\/p>\n

I brought 3 cups of water to a boil and added the lentils. Then I added the chopped potato. After that came back to a boil, I added 1 Tb fresh chopped ginger and all the carrots. About 10 minutes later everything was tender and creamy. I added 2 Tb miso and salt and pepper to taste. I blended it with a hand-held blender, but it would been good without that step. It made a wonderful soup. Rich and creamy, filling, super healthy. Red lentils cook down into a naturally creamy puree, so you never would have guessed it was a fat-free soup.<\/p>\n

I ate carrot-lentil soup and carrot cake for the next couple of days, with carrots on my salads as well. I looked a little orange, but with a black dress and some rhinestone earrings it went over quite well. The husband didn\u2019t notice because he was too busy scarfing down carrot cake.<\/p>\n

Carrot-Red Lentil Soup<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 cup dried red lentils
\n3 cups water
\n1 large potato, diced
\n1 Tb chopped fresh ginger
\n2 Tb miso paste<\/p>\n

Salt and pepper to taste<\/p>\n

Carrot Cake<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the cake:<\/em>
\n1\/4 cup cinnamon applesauce* (or equivalent substitute for 2 eggs)
\n1 tsp. vanilla extract
\n1\/2 cup Earth Balance margarine, softened
\n1 tsp. salt
\n1 1\/2 tsp. baking powder
\n2 tsp. cinnamon
\n1 cup sugar
\n1 1\/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
\n1\/4 cup vanilla soy milk
\n1 cup finely grated carrots (or 1 large jar strained-carrot baby food)
\n1 cup walnuts, chopped<\/p>\n

(If you don’t have cinnamon applesauce, use 1\/4 cup applesauce + 1 tsp cinnamon)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Preheat the oven to 325\u00b0F.
\n\u2022 Grease and flour a 9-inch square pan. Combine the first 9 ingredients, mixing well.
\n\u2022 Add the carrots and the walnuts. Pour the batter into the pan, spreading evenly.
\n\u2022 Bake for approximately 45 minutes. Cool before frosting.<\/p>\n

Frosting<\/strong>
\n8 oz. nondairy cream cheese (try Tofutti brand)
\n1\/2 cup Earth Balance margarine
\n2 cups powdered sugar
\n1 tsp. vanilla extract
\n1 1\/2 tsp. orange extract<\/p>\n

\u2022 Combine the cream cheese and the margarine.
\n\u2022 Slowly add the powdered sugar and stir to combine.
\n\u2022 Add the vanilla and orange extracts and stir to combine.<\/p>\n

Makes 10 servings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a craving for carrot cake last week, so I pulled up this recipe. It looked a little boring, but I figured it couldn\u2019t be that bad\u2026and I was in a hurry. I decided to double it so I could bring one cake to the office and keep one at home to score points […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[38,40,96,39,28],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayareaveg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayareaveg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayareaveg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayareaveg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayareaveg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayareaveg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":514,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayareaveg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions\/514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayareaveg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayareaveg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayareaveg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}