Carrot Top and Quinoa Soup

When I was on my quest to find carrot-top recipes, I found this one. I thought I'd try it tonight. I made some changes to the original recipe. It could easily be vegan if you wanted it to be.

Ingredients:
Olive oil (a tablespoon or so)
1/2 onion, chopped (I used a sweet onion, but I don't think that's absolutely necessary. You also could use an entire onion if you like, rather than just half.)
4 medium carrots (I actually used 7 smallish ones), chopped into rounds
6 c. beef, chicken, or vegetable stock (I made mine right in the soup pot with everything, using Better Than Bouillon organic beef base)
1/2 c. quinoa, rinsed
Carrot tops from the bunch of carrots, chopped
Salt (to taste)
Freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
Grated Parmesan (optional)

Sauté the onion in the olive oil until translucent. Dump in the carrots, stock, and quinoa. Stir. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes. Add the carrot tops and simmer for another 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle servings with Parmesan if desired.

Comments:
This is one of those meals that could very well become a regular visitor to our table, because it's quick, easy, healthy, cheap, and tasty. It also lends itself quite well to improvisation. You could add meat, other veggies, rice instead of quinoa, etc., and it would be delicious. I did have to adjust the original recipe, though (changes are reflected in the recipe above). When I first made the soup, it was really thick (as I had suspected it might be). I knew I could make it go farther and behave more like a soup by adding more liquid, so I increased the broth amount from 1 quart to 6 cups. I also think it would have been even better if I had added the carrot tops toward the end of the cooking process (as I did with the Tuscan Carrot Top and Rice Soup), instead of adding them with the carrots (as the original recipe suggested). I also increased the total cooking time by five minutes, because I wanted the carrots to be slightly more tender.