Friday, May 13, 2011

Do you want to make it fancy, or do you want to eat?

I made the best freakin' roasted curry cauliflower soup 2 days ago and it could not get any easier! Seriously! The more you cook and prepare your own foods the faster you get for sure, but many times you also figure out precious time saving steps. I mean, do you want to make it fancy? Or do you want to eat?

Roasted cauliflower soup, the old way, meant roasting your cauliflower first (salt pepper red pep flakes, olive oil) and then sauteing some onion and celery in olive oil, adding garlic and curry powder, pour in stock (or broth), add roasted cauliflower, cook until everything is soft and puree when cool enough to put in the belnder. Adjust seasoning.

Roasted cauliflower soup, the new way. Roast cauliflower, celery, onion and garlic cloves at the same time for about 25 minutes. Sprinkle and toss with curry powder and continue to roast for another 15 min. Scoop roasted veggies into a blender, add chicken stock and blend away. That's it.

Tips for roasting veggies.

Pre heat the roasting pan (s) when you pre-heat your oven! (375-400)

Having veggies at room temp is better that just out of the fridge. Often times I'll cut everything up let them sit and roast them hours later simply leaving them in the bowl to toss with olive oil, salt and red pepper flakes just before I put them in the oven.

If you are going to puree your roasted veggies don't stress out too much how good your knife skills are, just chop them up in med size chunks and be done with it! As long as everything is basically the same size (except for carrots, those are more dense and should be slightly smaller).

Once you have your veggies in a large bowl, pour your oil around the sides of the bowl, not all of it dierctly on top of the veggies and toss with your hands. The oil on the bowl will drip down the sides touching and coating more of the cut veggies (did I explain that OK?) Remember, if you are taking into account calories measure out your oil! I always measure 2 tbl., and "massage" the oil onto my veggies.


Cauliflower is one of the best "deals" in the produce section, many times selling for just under $2 a head. I easily got 6-7 cups of soup from 1 head of cauliflower, a couple of stalks of celery, 1 onion, and since I make my own stocks that part is free!

Since I love a bit of sweetness to a spicy curry soup I think dicing up a apple and roasting it along with everything else might be nice too!

What would you add? And what is your best tip for making something that used to take a longer time faster and easier?

3 comments:

guy said...

that sounds good! Thank you for the receipe Ma'am. Keep em comin.

Maribel said...

yum! I'm going to try that this weekend. I love roasted veggies.

Have you heard or roasting/toasting garbanzo beans and tossing them with curry powder? I read that recently and that might be a nice addition to this soup to get some "bite" in to it. I love smooth soups, but I always feel like I need the chew to satisfy. If I try it, I'll let you know how it goes.

Tracy Reifkind said...

Maribel,

I've been meaning to talk with you about garbanzo beans....stay away!