Garlic Soup

Do you like Garlic?

I myself love garlic, probably to an unhealthy degree. Garlic bread is like manna from heaven. Eating guacamole at my house? Prepare for a garlic overload. I live in a garlicky bliss. For about 2 weeks last winter all I ate was pasta sauteed in some olive oil, white wine, and garlic. (I had some fruit and carrot sticks too, I didn't want to get scurvy after all!)

Fast forwards to last week. Matthew and I have been discussing the ideas for food at our wedding (at my mother's insistence) and I suggested that a tasting menu, maybe finger foods or tapas style, just tonnes of it, might be fun. At Matthew's work there is a wonderful woman named Yuri who loves cooking as much as I do, and she overheard him mention that I was thinking of doing a tapas style menu. The next day she sent him home with three cookbooks about fingerfood and tapas. One of them contained a recipe for something called "Garlic Soup."

Now the garlic soup in that book only has 3 ingredients in common with mine- olive oil, Garlic, and white wine. Besides that, I was on my own, as the recipe was NOT vegan in the least.

But I created this, and I think it turned out wonderfully. It's garlicky, flavorful in other ways, and chock full of veggies! (And wine!)

Garlic Soup- Serves 2 as a meal, or 4 as a starter
Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup white wine
1 cup flavorful veggie stock
5 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
3 spring onions, white parts sliced thinly, and green stalks sliced thicker and set aside.
1 large carrot, peeled into a bunch of ribbons
1 tsp chili sauce (I use Sriracha) (Optional, but it adds a nice zing)
3 cocktail tomatoes, sliced into thin slices
(Cocktail tomatoes, if you haven't heard of them, are larger than cherry tomatoes, but smaller than regular tomatoes- feel free to use either cherry tomatoes, OR smallish (bitesized) tomatoes if your store doesn't have them)

Directions:
In a deep wok or saucepan, heat the olive oil on medium-high heat. Add in the white parts of the spring onions and the garlic slices, and sautee for a minute or two, until the edges of the garlic begin to brown and your whole kitchen starts to smell like yummy garlic.   :)
Add in the white wine and stock, and bring to a boil. Once it is boiling, turn it down to simmer.
Add in the carrots, and cook on simmering for about 3 minutes.
Add in the tomatoes and green parts of the onions, and the chili sauce (if using.) Cook for about 2 more minutes to cook away the raw onion taste.
Serve, and enjoy the awesome yummy surprise that is Garlic Soup! The whole cooking process takes about 10 minutes in total, and preparing all of the ingredients also takes about 10 minutes, so you could be enjoying a delicious dinner in under half an hour!

Tomato garlic goodness!