>> When you head to the produce department, carrots are always easy to spot.

In the world of vegetable varieties, we all know that carrots are good for you and that bright orange color looks spectacular when you're setting out baby carrots and dips as an appetizer for your dinner party.

But have you run out of new ideas on why carrots should be on the menu at your house?

Well, Sharon Profis has some thoughts on carrots that might help.

Let's check in with her in our Farm to Fork segment.

♪♪ >> Today we're making carrot soup, but it's just not any carrot soup, we're going to enhance the flavor of the carrots and we're going to use the whole vegetable, form the tip all the way to the greens, so we'll get to the greens later, for now I'm just going to cut them off and set them aside.

Whenever I cook with carrots I like to remove the skin because it can be bitter, so I'd rather not risk it, just go ahead and remove it, and the carrot top.

At the store or at the farmers market you might see a variety of carrots; they don't just come in the color orange, there are purple carrots, yellow carrots and even multi-colored carrots.

>> They're beautiful in salads, but in this case since we're making a soup we'll stick with the orange variety.

It might go without saying but when you're shopping for carrots pick the ones that are the most brightly colored.

Because we're roasting the carrots for the soup they're going to be even sweeter than they already are, I love roasting carrots, I love sautéing them, it brings out their true sweetness and that's exactly what we're doing here.

To complement the carrot's sweetness I'm adding an apple, I've chosen Braeburn apples, basically any apple that has a sweet-tart flavor is going to be perfect here.

>> We'll also add a couple stocks of celery including the leaves, I feel like that's the theme here, you've got to use the whole vegetable, the leaves have a lot of flavor in them, especially celery leaves, it's like if the veggie was an herb that's what the greens taste like.

So two cloves of garlic and finally half an onion.

I basically have a Mirepoix here, onion, carrots and celery.

So just the rough slice, in they go, and we'll keep the seasoning very simple since we have a lot of flavors going on and we want to still taste the carrot, so just a pinch of salt, about half a tea-spoon of chili powder, about a quarter tea-spoon of pepper, and finally 1 to 2 table-spoons of olive oil.

>> Alright we'll put it on our baking sheet here.

I'm going to put this in the oven at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes until they're just starting to brown and ready to become a soup.

Like I said always keep the carrot top, so you can save them for a veggie stock or in this case we're going to turn them into a pesto, so we're subbing some of the basil with carrot tops, but first into the food processor goes walnuts and parmesan.

So put them in there, and we just want to grind these up first.

(food processor) The reason we do that is because the greens don't take as long to break down, now we can put in the carrot tops, that's from about 2 bunches of carrots and basil, so we still get that true pesto flavor, some salt but not too much because the cheese is salty, and pepper.

>> We'll give this a whirl and while it's going I'm drizzling in about a half a cup of olive oil.

(food processor) Perfect.

We'll set this aside and use some of this as a topping for our soup, it's going to be so beautiful and the rest of it you can keep in the fridge for pasta or anything else you want to use it for, for about a week or a week and a half.

>> At this point our veggies should be roasted, so we're going to remove them from the oven and make our soup.

These look and smell amazing, and this is how you want them, just starting to brown, soft enough to become a soup, and while they're still hot, just immediately transfer them to a food processor or a blender, and we'll add the veggie stock.

>> You can also use chicken stock if that's your preference, but I feel like with vegetable soup sometimes the chicken stock can take over a little bit so the veggie really lets the main ingredients shine.

There's no hard-and-fast rule about how much so I'll start with a little bit and see where that takes us.

Now this is beautiful soup.

Because carrots are packed with beta-Carotene, the thing that makes them orange, it comes out so beautifully when you blend it, so now I'm going to transfer it to this pot, heat it up on the stove, and then we'll be ready to serve it with our carrot top pesto.

>> Check out this beautiful warm bowl of soup that we still have to dress up a little bit.

So I'll take a little spoonful of our pesto, oh..., the colors are beautiful, and I know you typically put cream in the soup when you blend it, but I prefer it as a garnish, it's a beautiful bright dish that looks like it came out of a restaurant but you made it in your own home, and now all that's left to do is eat.

♪♪ >> Ready for some carrot science when it comes to those bright orange vegetables?

Here's a fun fact: Some people claim carrots taste sweeter when grown in cooler weather.

Carrots... to protect themselves from freezing... convert some of their starch to sugar when growing in colder weather.

This helps prevent ice crystals from forming and prevents damage to the carrot's cells.