Recipe #15 Cauliflower-Kale Soup
What to do with leftover veggies?
Make a winter soup of course! Google led me to this recipe on Williams-Sonoma of all sites. The final product was decent; aside from some unintentional extra crispy (i.e. burnt) kale crunch. I wanted to eat something healthy following my three days of Thanksgiving. The leftovers last awhile. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize I had run out of vegetable broth.
That’s a lie; I never bought the broth in the first place. As someone who avoided the kitchen for 23 out of 24 years of life, I don’t keep anything in stock except for peanut butter, coffee and red wine. However, I still rummaged through every shelf in hopes some vegetable broth would magically appear, or pop out of hiding from behind a cereal box. It didn’t work. Chicken broth would have to suffice; turning this healthy recipe into a gift for neighbors.
I followed most of this recipe, except I didn’t have a whole bunch of kale, only two thirds, which might account for why the soup isn’t quite as green as the picture on Williams-Sonoma. Also, there was no way I was cleaning a dutch oven, so I sautéed the celery, onion and garlic in a frying pan then put them in a big ass pot with the 7 cups of chicken broth.
Also, misread 2 stalks of celery and accidentally used 5. Whoops. Like editing, I should probably read the ingredients and instructions three times instead of two.
I think Williams-Sonoma sells the Vitamix and is subtlety trying to get readers to purchase one, but you do not need one to make this recipe. A blender works just fine.
I subbed toasted walnuts for pine-nuts. Pine-nuts are also not readily available in my pantry due to cost, but it might be time to invest as homemade pesto sounds pretty tasty. The recipe took less than an hour, which was a fairly pleasant surprise.
Takeaways: Buy vegetable broth. It’s vegetarian friendly. Be less bitter about giving something tasty away.
Who slurped the soup? My neighbors.
November 30, 2013. Day 9. Recipe #15.
