It is the last pick up of my CSA season. After months of voyaging to the my local farm and gathering my bountiful basket of organic Jersey fresh produce, it is time to say good-bye for another season and enjoy the last of my Fall produce. In my CSA basket this week I received a beautiful head of cheddar cauliflower and some fresh leeks that were just screaming to be transformed into this Roasted Cauliflower and Leek Soup recipe. I don’t know what it is about the Fall but my body yearns for soup. I literally crave it daily, specifically soups filled with mass amounts of vegetables. I have always been a minimal meat-eater and could easily go without it, and did for about five years until I married a carnivore. There is something so wholesome about a warm bowl of soup filled with mass amounts of vegetables that makes me so happy.
This Roasted Cauliflower and Leek Soup recipe uses cheddar cauliflower. I used cheddar cauliflower because that’s what was included in my basket, but any cauliflower will do. To be honest, until my recent CSA I had never heard of cheddar cauliflower. I had thought it would have a cheesy taste to it, but nope, tastes just like plain, old cauliflower.
To begin my Roasted Cauliflower and Leek Soup recipe I began by washing my cauliflower, cutting it into small florets, drizzling it with olive oil and a sprinkling of kosher salt and roasted it in the oven until tender.
While the cauliflower was roasting I cleaned my leeks thoroughly (they are hard to clean), sliced them and added them to a large pot with a drizzling of olive oil and a dusting of kosher salt. I added some scallions to the pot and cooked them until they were translucent.
I then added the roasted and tender cauliflower to the pot and began to add the additional ingredients to create this soul-warming soup.
Roasted Cauliflower and Leek Soup
Ingredients
- 1 head of cauliflower cut into florets and roasted
- 2 TBSP olive oil
- 3 leeks cleaned and sliced
- 1 scallion chopped
- 4 cloves of garlic diced
- 4 cups of chicken stock
- 1 cup of milk
- 1/4 teaspoon cumin
- 1/8 teaspoon tumeric
- Cheddar cheese and crisp bacon for topping optional
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to350 degrees F (135 degrees C).
- Arrange cauliflower florets on a baking sheet; sprinkle with salt
- Bake cauliflower in the preheated oven until tender and lightly browned, about 30 minutes.
- Add olive oil to large soup pot and warm over medium heat; add leeks and scallion for about 5 to 10 minutes. Add cauliflower, chicken stock, milk, cumin, tumeric, salt and pepper. Simmer until flavors have combined, 20 to 25 minutes. Use an immersion blender or remove mixture from pot and blend until smooth. Serve warm, topped with cheddar cheese and crisp bacon (optional), add additional salt and pepper to taste
Tasty, filling and simple. It doesn’t get much better than this. To me, this soup feels like the perfect Fall meal. Try my Roasted Cauliflower and Leek soup recipe today and let me know what you think.
This article was written by Linda Arceo for Giggles, Gobbles and Gulps. Connect with me on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.
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