22 January 2012

Cauliflower-Ginger-Potato Soup

Part of my goal of feeling healthier this year is, of course, eating healthier. I'm never going to be able to get a healthy can of soup off the shelf in Germany, but now that I can find natural and MSG-free stock, I'm going to be making a lot more soup. And since the kids are very happy just to have a quick chicken-noodle (while I'm not), I'll be experimenting more.

The last soup was a big hit with the German, myself, and Ian (who tells me that he has had an issue posting comments- if anyone else has, would you drop me a line at bigappletobigbear (at) googlemail.com so I can see if there's a general issue?). I'll be following up tomorrow with a miso version and will add it to that post, but yesterday I made Cauiflower-Ginger-Potato soup. I started off thinking I could make it parve again, but I'm afraid I went, ahem, too far with the cayenne pepper and wound up needing to add a liter of 2% milk to calm it down. The German says it's still a bit spicy, but good with the milk added.

I started with the allrecipes.com Creamy Cauliflower with Ginger soup and changed it up a bit.

Cauliflower-Ginger-Potato Soup
  • olive oil (enough to simmer the vegetables)
  • a head of cauliflower, roughly broken (I picked up organic and it was the best I have ever had- I may need to consider buying organic cauliflower deliberately in the future)
  • turmeric (I didn't have fresh, but it's definitely better. Just wear plastic gloves when scraping it or know that you fingers will be dyed a rich golden color)
  • cayenne pepper
  • 4 cloves garlic, sliced
  • onion, large dice
  • thumb+'s worth of peeled and sliced fresh ginger root
  • 2 blocks Knorr vegetable MSG-free bouillon
  • 6 cups boiling water
  • a bunch of garam masala (is any recipe with ginger not better with garam masala?)
  • cayenne pepper to taste (don't do what I did- throw a bunch in)
  • an extra potato or two, peeled and quartered (thrown in to calm the cayenne down in my case, but also making it smoother and thicker)
  • 2/3-1 liter 2% milk (you can use whole if desired)
  • salt and pepper to taste
Heat the oil in a stock/soup pot until it shimmers.
Then add the onions and sautee for 5 minutes.
Add turmeric and garam masala, to taste or a T+ each. Add cayenne pepper, but start with 1t and add more toward the end of cooking, when you can actually taste it.
Add cauliflower (and if you will use the potatoes, add them here as well)and continue to sautee 10 minutes.
Add garlic and ginger and sautee 2 minutes (add more oil if required).
Then add bouillon blocks and boiling water, stir, cover, bring to boil then lower to simmer for 20 minutes.
Use an immersion blender to puree the soup. Adjust spices. Add milk to taste and re-adjust spices, particularly salt and pepper.

The original recipe was 8 servings at 144 cal- this would be less: more (lower fat) milk, but more olive oil, 2x the fluid with far fewer calories. Our servings are more than a cup and we have more than 10.

Enjoy!

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