Curried Cream of Cauliflower Soup

I usually eat a pretty light lunch. It's often just enough to hold me over to supper cause I like to eat a substantial evening meal. I'd like to switch things up a bit to eat a larger meal closer to the middle of the day and end the day on a lighter meal but i haven't yet worked up the courage ... yes courage, to do so.

I quite like soup for my mid day meal because it is light and low in calories and yet packs a nutritional punch. I occasionally will have a full sized sandwich on whole wheat or better yet a half sandwich with a half a bowl of soup but i rarely have any more than that.

While I used to buy most of my soups in those cartons you see (I'd mix and match ... a little of this ... a little of that) lately I have been making my own. It' easy and I make a big batch, freezing my extra portions to be thawed, heated and eaten later.

The last soup I made was curried cauliflower. Now, I like plain old regular cream of cauliflower soup but THIS soup has a curry twist which is really quite nice and flavourful. If you like a bit of heat (not much) this is something you might like to try. It's only 156 calories for a full cup serving (250ml) and has 3g of fiber! You can see the recipe and complete nutritional data HERE

Curried Cream of Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients

• 1 Leek
• 4 tbsp Shallots
• 1/2 medium Onion, Sweet
• 1 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 tbsp Unsalted Cultured Butter My Country
• 1 medium stalk celery, raw
• 2 tbsp Minced Garlic in Water
• 2 tsp Curry Powder
• 2 tsp Ground Ginger
• 3 cups No Salt Added Chicken Broth
• 3 cups Vegetable Stock Salt Reduced
• 1/2 whole yiel LEMON Juice, Fresh Squeezed
• 840 g Cauliflower Head
• 1 cup Creamo Half & Half
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1/4 tsp Ground White Pepper
• 2 tbsp Parmesan Cheese, Grated
• 1 oz Shropshire Blue Cheese

Directions

1. Cut leek(s) in half lengthwise. Wash to remove dirt. Pat dry and thinly slice crosswise. Slice leeks and rough chop remaining vegetables.

2. Heat the oil with the butter in a heavy pot over low heat. Cook the leeks, shallots and/or onions and celery until softened, about 10 minutes; add garlic and cook another couple minutes, no more than 5, you don't want to burn the garlic :)

3. Stir in the curry powder and ginger, and cook over very low heat about 1 minute or so to wake the spices up.

4. Add the broth, lemon juice, and cauliflower florets from 1 medium to large head. Raise the heat to high and bring to a boil; reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, until the cauliflower is very tender and falling apart, 15 minutes. Cool slightly. ADD cream, Parmesan and blue cheeses.

5. Purée in a food processor until very smooth, (I used an immersion blender) Season with salt and pepper. You can adjust the thickness of the soup by adding more broth if you need to. I did not need to it was perfect as is.

Notes:

This called for 2 leeks but I only had one so I subbed a couple shallots and half a sweet onion for the second. Don't be afraid of the spices, I used a 50/50 blend of mild and medium curry powders and the final soup just had a light hint of it, enough to let you know it was there but not nearly enough to really say there was heat to this. Fresh garlic minced would be great but all I had was some of the jarred variety and it was fine. The recipe called for 6c of chicken stock and/or vegetable stock so I used 3 cups of the last of my homemade chicken stock and 3 cups bought veggie broth to make up the difference. You can use what you like :)

This is optional but I added 2T grated Parmesan and 30g of blue cheese at the very end when I was pureeing this and it really made this soup sing! Be warned that blue cheese is quite a strong cheese imo so less is more, if you get my drift, still it does add a nice dimension to this soup so I recommend trying it at least once ;) If you want a richer soup use coffee cream (18% fat) but I used half and half (10%) and it was lovely. In a pinch you could probably even use milk but it wont be as rich. I found it plenty rich myself but then again I added cheese.

Salt and pepper are of course, to taste. I added about a tsp salt but most of my ingredients started out sodium free, let your taste buds decide

IA