So the last time I posted here it was all the way back in (checks notes) Early August! Well. That’s very slack of me and I’m sorry for being so tardy. In my defence I had to move out of the apartment that I had lived in for over thirteen years in July (I moved in to my apartment on March 24th, 2012 and oh boy has a lot of water passed under the bridge since then!).

So, the last several months have been a slow process of getting myself set up again and finding a new routine (not to mention the joy of unpacking boxes!) and unfortunately writing blog posts here has been very low down my list. I intend to change that going forward!

One of the things that is becoming part of the new routine is working on improving my diet and losing some of the weight that inevitably creeps on as we get older. To that end I generally try to maintain a low to zero carb diet these days and when combined with intermittent fasting (for eighteen to twenty hours per day) then I find that I can lose weight effectively. 

One of the things that I have been doing in aid of that diet is making cauliflower soup. Now that may not immediately appeal to everyone, but after seeing it on a menu recently then making my own I have to say, I’m really enjoying it! This is my recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 large heads of cauliflower
• 2 full heads of garlic
• 2 large onions
• Five large sticks of celery (including leaves)
• 500ml liquid stock (vegetable, or chicken) or equivalent
• 2 tablespoons spoons soy sauce
• 200ml cream
• Butter
• Olive oil
• Pepper (I prefer fresh cracked)

Additional ingredients to serve:

• Grated hard cheese (I prefer Romano, but any strong flavoured hard cheese will do)
• Sour cream or natural yoghurt
• Pepper and salt
• Sour dough bread

Instructions:

1. Heat the oven to 170 degrees C
2. Trim the leaves from the cauliflower heads and place them whole in a large baking dish
3. Add the whole heads of garlic to the baking dish as well
4. Cover cauliflower and garlic with olive oil, salt, and pepper
5. Place in oven and cook uncovered for approximately one hour or until soft (you should be able to break it up with a spoon easily)
6. Check every 15 minutes to make sure that cauliflower doesn’t burn – it should brown though! Apply more olive oil, or baste with drippings in the pan to help brown the cauliflower
7. While the cauliflower is baking, chop the onion and celery small, not fine
8. Heat a large pot on medium heat
9. Add approximately 100 grams of butter and a generous amount of olive oil to the pot, allow butter to melt
10. Add celery and onion to the pot, stir, then cover and allow to cook until soft
11. Remove pot from heat
12. Add stock, soy sauce, to the pot with the celery and onion
13. Break up the cauliflower and add to the pot – don’t forget to include any scrapings and the olive oil from the baking tray!
14. Chop the tops off the garlic heads to expose the tops of the cloves, then squeeze the roasted garlic out of the head into the pot with the other ingredients
15. Add the cream to the pot
16. Purée the ingredients in the pot with a stick blender. If you don’t have a stick blender you can use a potatoe masher to mash the ingredients roughly to combine them, then transfer them in batches to a regular blender. Blend until smooth
17. Add water to reach the desired consistency. I like a thicker soup, but it can be thinned with water to your preference

Serving:

1. Finely grate your hard cheese of choice
2. Toast the bread and butter it generously while hot!
3. Ladel the soup into bowls
4. Add a dollop of sour cream, or natural yoghurt
5. Top with grated cheese and cracked pepper then serve with the toast on the side

This recipe gives eight to ten generous serves. I like to let the soup stand in the fridge overnight to allow the flavours to integrate fully before eating it, but it’s fine straight off the stove. I usually keep four serves in the fridge and put the rest in the freezer.

John

One of the true joys of summer has to be sugar snaps fresh off the vine.

John