Carrot and Mushroom Curry soup

It's curry again.  Why not?

Don't front.  I have all of the spices to make curry from scratch, so it seems silly to simply make a sandwich for lunch when I know I can have a world of flavor in each spoon.  In the meantime, as cooking and a tasty drink go hand-in-hand, why not sip on an IPA while I get to work:

I thought that I would take a stab at making a carrot and mushroom soup.  Seemed like a legit idea. Both vegetables are from the ground and what not. Check.  Both have an intricate, earthy flavor. Check.  But will they compliment one another?  I wanted to find out.

I began with the curry:
2 Tblsp Peanut butter
2 Tblsp Sriracha Sauce
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1 tsp Coriander
1 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Turmeric
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
3 cloves
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1 small diced onion
1/3 cup of vegan butter
1 tsp Sea Salt
1 Tbsp diced Ginger
4 cloves of Garlic, minced
1/2 can of Coconut milk

I added all the above ingredients to a sauce pan and cooked at medium heat (about 15min) until the onions were super-duper soft.  In the meantime, I boiled an entire bag of carrots in 3 cups of water for 30 minutes.  I placed the remaining water and carrots into a Ninja and chopped 1 pack of Button mushrooms to join the party.  I mixed until completely smooth and then placed it back into the pot with the curry.  I added 2-3 cups of water and cooked on medium heat for 20 minutes.

Now I'm bored.  Are you bored?

I had dreamt up and cooked a thai carrot soup recently, and it was amazing.  I think I can do better, here.  As I stirred the soup, I was talking to a very good friend of mine about how this recipe could be improved.  Perhaps some tofu and some peas?  We conferred for a bit and decided that peas were good but they simply provided thickness, not a whole lot of flavor.  But I'm going to go ahead and say that we were wrong.  I popped out to my local natural foods store and grabbed the additional ingredients.

To prepare the tofu and peas, I put 2Tblsp of oil into a pan with 3/4 Tblsp of store-bought curry powder and 1tsp of Sea Salt.  I dried and then cubed the tofu and cooked it in the pan on Med-High heat for 10 minutes, adding the peas only to thaw them.  Beware: do not stare at this dish while cooking for too long.  This amount of yellow will jack with your visual rods and cones, there is so much turmeric:

My friend asked me, "Are they English peas?"
I had no clue.  These were frozen peas and, quite frankly, I find them sweeter than their sodium-saturated brethren drowned in a can.  This is why peas were a great compliment to this dish.  But here is the deal, peeps.  Salt is tricky when making curry from scratch.  I have a MASSIVE bowl of food, here, and seemingly haven't used enough salt.  But I don't want to add salt at the moment.  The reason is that freshly made curry will marry over time.  The flavor of this dish is going to change.  I've tested the final combination and the result is what I refer to as a "Creeper."

It looks like brown gravy and beef tips, yeah?  It's very delicious(and vegan), but the flavor will hit your brain over a matter of ten seconds.  First, the taste is extremely light.  Then seconds later, a flood of various and complex spices enter such that you will savor it before the next bite.  You may even find that the "heat" hits surprisingly late; long after the swallow is down the hatch.  Warn your weaker friends.

I shall let this beauty nap for a bit, give birth to the unknown and report back...

Update: This deep flavored dish only needed a bit more garlic.  The saltiness came on with time.  Delicious, sweet, and earthy is the flavor of the Carrot Mushroom soup.  With tofu and peas... and a bunch of other stuff.