Put down what you are doing and make a pot of this soup!
It’s absolutely delicious and, you know, it’s a superfood. Who doesn’t need to pack more superfoods into their diet?
If you cook for yourself or for a small family, you might be reluctant to buy a cauliflower. They’re big. How in the world do you store them so that they don’t spoil while you get your cauliflower cooking organized?
But never fear. According to the Taste of Home site, you can extend the life of a cauliflower stored in your refrigerator with a couple clever storage tricks.
First, let your cauliflower breathe! Loosen that stretch wrap that the grocery wraps around the cauliflower to protect its pretty milky-white exterior.
Secondly, store the cauliflower stem up. Taste of Home doesn’t explain why that works but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. What could it hurt?
Finally, suppress your urge to wash the cauliflower before putting it in the refrigerator. That extra water could collect in the crevices of the cauliflower and lead to the growth of all kinds of nasty stuff.
This Cauliflower Bisque recipe was originally included in Anna Thomas’ paean to all things soup. The cookbook, Love Soup, is available through your local bookstore or online through Amazon here.
Thomas is the author of several noted vegetarian cookbooks, notably the best-selling Vegetarian Epicure which she wrote while in college at UCLA. This particular cookbook, Love Soup, published in 2009, won the prestigious James Beard Foundation Book of the Year (Healthy Focus) Award. In the forward to the book, Thomas writes about the joy of cooking with fresh ingredients: “I knew that taking simple, fresh ingredients into a kitchen and turning them into a nourishing meal was part of the natural rhythm of life.”
That’s how I feel about cooking. Cooking connects me to my food and, in turn, to that natural rhythm of life Thomas writes about.
Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. Its a keeper. And, you will notice my bowl of personal soup has a whole lot of crispy breadcrumbs. You’ll enjoy the contrast in textures, I think.
Cauliflower Bisque
Ingredients
- 1 large cauliflower (about 2 pounds--cut into florets)
- 4 C. vegetable broth
- 2 C. water (or two additional C. vegetable broth)
- 1 lemon
- 1 1/2 t. salt or to taste
- 2 medium carrots (chopped)
- 2 medium stalks of celery (chopped)
- 1 yellow onion (chopped)
- 3 T. olive oil
- 5 cloves garlic (minced)
- 1 scant t. herbes de Provence
- 2 oz. cream cheese
- Buttered breadcrumbs (for garnish)
Directions
- Step 1 Chop vegetables. Set aside.
- Step 2 Clean lemon and slice a 1-inch piece of zest from the lemon. Juice the lemon. Set aside.
- Step 3 Add water and vegetable broth into a large soup pot along with the cauliflower florets, the strip of lemon zest, 2 T. fresh lemon juice and salt. Bring to a boil. Bring the water/vegetable broth to a boil and then bring the temperature down so that the cauliflower and water mixture simmers for about 15 minutes in the covered soup pot. Remove the lemon zest strip and discard.
- Step 4 Heat the 2 T. of olive oil in a large saucepan and saute the chopped onion, carrots and celery along with the garlic and half a teaspoon of salt. Saute for about 20 minutes. You want your vegetables to become soft but not brown. After the 20-minute saute, stir in the herbs de Provence.
- Step 5 Add the sauteed vegetables to the cauliflower and water mixture. Simmer for another 15 or 20 minutes until the vegetables are very soft. Remove from the heat and let the mixture cool a bit. Once it is safely cool, puree the soup with either an immersion blender or in a food processor or blender.
- Step 6 Adjust seasonings (salt and lemon juice). Put the pot of soup back on your stove, add the cream cheese and the remaining 1 T. of olive oil and simmer until the cheese melts into the soup. You can speed the process with your immersion blender.
- Step 7 Saute bread crumbs with some melted butter. Serve the soup topped with some of the bread crumbs.
- Step 8 Cook’s Note: I used some chopped green union and a sliver of fresh red pepper as a pretty garnish on this soup.
