One of the coolest things is reaching that stage in life when your children become your friends. Parents no longer need to constantly be teaching their kids, but can instead learn a few things from them.
I have to confess that I love meat, and a vegetarian diet would be torturous. BUT there are days when all I crave is veggies, and lots of them. To find a satisfying, comforting, and DELICIOUS recipe for vegetarian soup, I just need to call my daughter. Kristina isn’t a vegetarian, but often chooses to eat meatless. And she has good taste. 🙂
Isn’t she gorgeous?!?
Anyway, roasting vegetables enhances their flavour – makes them taste milder, sweeter, and more complex. And it smells great.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prepare a few heads of garlic to roast – because we don’t want to waste energy – one entire head will be added to the soup. The others can be used in dozens of different ways. Trim off the top of each head, exposing the individual cloves. Drizzle with olive oil, add some fresh rosemary if desired, and wrap in aluminium foil. This gives the garlic a headstart on roasting, since it takes longer than veggies – I plan on 45 minutes.
While the garlic is roasting, cut up a head of cauliflower, a red onion, and several carrots. Toss with olive oil and put on a large baking sheet. The vegetables will take 25 minutes to roast. See? that gives you 20 minutes to prep veggies while the garlic is enjoying a little solitude in the oven. 🙂
(I used so many veggies – more is always better! – that I had to put the carrots and zucchini on another pan.)
Cut a zucchini lengthwise and then into “half moon” pieces. After the cauliflower, onion and carrots have been in the oven about 10 minutes pull them out to stir, and add the zucchini.
Return all the veggies to the oven for another 10-15 minutes, or until they are beginning to brown and smell fantastic.
Meanwhile, toast the black pepper, thyme and paprika in a large pot until fragrant, making sure they don’t scorch. Add in the wine, broth, parsley, salt, and a bay leaf. Add all those beautifully roasted veggies and garlic to the pot, cover, and allow to simmer for 10 minutes.
Remove the bay leaf. Using an immersion blender, break up all those chunks, adding additional broth as desired. (If you don’t have an immersion blender, just take a couple cups of soup at a time and put into a regular blender. Be careful! It will be hot! Unless you are able to release the top of the blender a little, steam and hot soup might just explode all over the place.)
Once you have the consistency you like – I prefer applesauce-like blended soup – add the cream and serve with gluten free croutons or bread.
PrintRoasted Cauliflower Soup
Ingredients
- 1 head of garlic
- 1 head cauliflower
- 1 large red onion
- 3 carrots
- 1 zucchini
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp thyme
- 1/4 tsp paprika
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 3–4 cups vegetable stock
- 1 tsp parsley
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/2 cup cream
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees
- Trim top off garlic head, drizzle with olive oil, wrap in foil and roast for a total of 45 minutes
- Cut cauliflower, red onion, and carrots, toss with olive oil, spread on a large baking sheet, and add to the oven for a total of 25 minutes
- Cut the zucchini lengthwise, and cut into half-moon pieces
- Stir the vegetables after 10 minutes and add zucchini to the baking pan, returning to the oven
- While veggies are roasting, toast pepper, thyme, and paprika in a large pot, making certain they don’t scorch
- Add white wine and 3 cups of broth, the parsley and bay leaf, bringing to a simmer
- Once vegetables have finished roasting, add them to the pot, and simmer for 10 minutes
- Squeeze garlic cloves from their papery skins and add to the soup
- Remove the bay leaf
- With an immersion blender break up the vegetables, adding the final cup of broth to desired consistency
- Stir in cream (you shouldn’t need to heat the soup any more, but if you do reheat it, don’t allow the soup to boil hard)
