Creamy Curry Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more to serve

2 medium white onions, thinly sliced

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to season

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 large head of cauliflower (about 2 pounds), trimmed and cut into florets

4 1/2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth (or I like better than bouillon...well, better) 

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 1/4 teaspoons ground cumin

1 cup coconut milk

Directions

Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Cook the onions with ¼ teaspoon salt until they’re soft and translucent (8-9 minutes). Reduce heat to low, add garlic, and cook for 2 more minutes. Add cauliflower, broth, coriander, turmeric, cumin, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to low. Simmer until cauliflower is soft (maybe 15 minutes or so). Purée the soup in a blender or with an immersion blender right in the pot until it’s smooth. Stir in the coconut milk. This secretly vegan soup is light, so easy to make, and delicious! It tastes almost like a potato curry soup so you'd barely know you were eating such a healthy veggie soup.

Cheesy cauliflower

In the spirit of cooking and eating more veggies, I made this amazing cheesy cauliflower dish tonight that's basically mac and cheese but with cauliflower instead of pasta.

What you need:

• 1 head cauliflower (chopped into bite-sized pieces)
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp butter
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 bay leaf (unless you're afraid of bay leaves like I am)
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1½ cups milk
• 6 oz cheddar, grated
• salt and pepper
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard

Set the oven to 400 F.

Bring a large pot of water to boil over high heat. Add the salt and the cauliflower, then cook for 4 minutes.
Meanwhile, butter or spray a glass/ceramic baking dish. Drain the water from the cauliflower and pour it into the baking dish.

To make the sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan on medium heat. Add the garlic (and bay leaf),
then cook for about 1 minute. Add the flour and stir quickly. Kurt and Hannah would like me to point out here that the flour-butter mixture is called a roux. They are the king and queen of the roux.  You want the roux to get just a little brown--this will probably take another minute. Slowly add the milk to the pot, stirring the whole time to incorporate the roux. Bring the sauce to a boil, stirring so you don't burn the milk on the bottom of the pan.  Once it comes to a boil, turn off the heat and stir in the cheese and mustard.  Add salt and pepper.

Pour the sauce over the cauliflower. You can sprinkle some breadcrumbs over the top if you're into that sort of thing, which I am. Bake for 40 minutes, or until the top is brown and bubbly.

Disclaimer: being the weird customizing part-time vegan that I am, I actually used almond milk and soy cheese and I'm delighted to say that it still turned out delicious although the sauce wasn't quite as creamy as it usually is because apparently fake cheese doesn't melt quite as nicely as normal cheese. But I'd still do it again because once it all bakes, it's still creamy and amazing.

Disclaimer #2: I got the recipe from this cookbook, which I love--she is amazing! 

Kale, cauliflower, and broccoli

I'm currently trying out Kurt's zucchini recipe and I thought I should share that I think adding olive oil and parmesan makes all vegetables better really.  Baking kale drizzled in olive oil with salt and parmesan basically turns gross kale into delicious potato chip like things.  Chopped up cauliflower with olive oil, salt, parmesan, and lemon juice is amazing.  Or if you put some butter, parmesan, and bread crumbs all over the top of a head of cauliflower and bake it in the oven, it also turns out pretty tasty.

And I know we're not supposed to say things like we like vegetables plain because they're so delicious, but have you ever just stir fried broccoli in olive oil?  Somehow steaming, boiling, pretty much anything you do to broccoli makes it somewhat gross to me, but stir frying it to the point where it's almost burning gives it little crispy edges and with some salt, it's strangely delicious.

Anyway, I just wanted to do some vegetable promotion because I think we all need inspiration in that department.  I'm working on operation make veggies delicious this summer so I'll try to keep it up.