Cauliflower Soup + Macadamia Cream

This dish was inspired by Carrie’s Creamy Beany Butternut Squash Soup. Although my northern hemisphere readers will be turning to meals like this more regularly as the mercury plummets and they try to keep warm, unexpected cool summer days are not uncommon in Melbourne, either. Recently, one of these chilly, miserable days rolled by, and all signs pointed to soup. While my recipe is similar to Carrie’s, this is again another great example of how you can be inspired by a recipe, and then make it your own. Read on>>

Cauliflower Soup w Macadamia Cream (vegan, gluten free, soy free, cane sugar free)
Cream
– 1/2 cup macadamias (or cashews)
– <1/4 cup rice milk (or almond, soy, oat, etc) Blend the nuts by themselves until they reach a nut butter consistency (this literally until took a few minutes due to the high fat content of macadamias), and then add your choice of dairy free milk until it seems right to you.

I just want to take a second to appreciate the loveliness that is making home made vegan cream. What a serious joy it was, and thank you Carrie for your inspiration. Two ingredients, a couple of minutes and what resulted was a beautiful thick, sweet, mellow cream. Happy Tara!

– 1 whole head of cauliflower
– 1 large onion
– 3 gloves garlic
– 1 big handful of dried shitake mushrooms
– 2 cups silverbeet (you could use any green you like)
– 1 cup beans, soaked

Water sauté onion, garlic, mushrooms and paprika, then add the rest of the ingredients and cover with water. I let mine sit for a good hour on the heat. Everything will reduce and breakdown and become beautiful and thick. From there, once it has cooled a little, you can transfer the soup to a blender until smooth. This is where I tell you again about my gutless blender and that if you have a high speed one, your result will be much smoother and severely more visually appealing than mine! Aesthetics aside though, this soup is wholesome, nutritious, simple and rich, despite there being no butter, cream or chicken stock. I served mine with one of my carrot pulp falafels which I crumbled over top, for a decidedly Middle Eastern flavor. This yielded enough for probably eight serves, like Carrie, I have a few containers in the freezer.

Friends, I’m very excited! It’s almost time for Glen and I to pack up again and take off. I’m so ready to escape to some Balinese serenity and get the hell out of civilization for a week or so. After Bali, we’re going to enjoy even more love party celebrations in sunny Queensland, and then we’re off to Canada, which will be home for the proceeding six months. Undoubtedly you will start to see less recipes from me, but I hope to substitute any inspiration you might get from them with images of magical snow capped mountains and tales of our snowboarding adventures. Bring on the white stuff!

Today, I am grateful and feel lucky that I live in a world where I can work for fair money, make my own decisions, marry the man I love and travel the world.


What are you grateful for today?