Monday, January 6, 2014

Roasted Sweet Potato and Cauliflower Soup

It has been quite the winter wonderland in New York since the end of last week. Winter storm Hercules (seriously, who comes up with these names?) came into New York full force on Thursday, dumping at least six inches of snow all over the city. Of course, I was happy as can be because I love the snow! Unfortunately, it started melting this weekend and the slushy snow has come. If only I had proper waterproof winter boots and I'd be able to deal with it better. Oh well, my love for snow outweighs the gross slushiness :)

Due to the cold weather, I thought, what better way to enjoy it than with a comforting bowl of soup? I already had a head of cauliflower in my fridge so I decided to try out this recipe for roasted sweet potato and cauliflower soup


I roasted the veggies for about 40 minutes since my oven only likes to go up to 350 degrees before setting off the fire alarm (gotta love NY apartments). I would recommend baking them until they are fork tender so that blending is easier, depending on the quality of your blender. I used an immersion blender and then transferred everything to my food processor since it was still fairly chunky.


I added about three cups of chicken broth to start, once I blended the soup. I used my immersion blender again as I added more broth, ending up using about 5 cups. The soup had a slightly thick consistency, not silky smooth as the original blog suggested, but I was happy with the results.


I also added more spices than the recipe suggested, as I felt the flavor was a bit on the bland side. I didn't realize at first that I had paprika so I added a few pinches of cayenne pepper instead. Once I found my paprika, I added about a 1/4 teaspoon along with a few pinches of ground ginger. I also added a generous amount of salt as the original teaspoon was not enough, in my opinion.


This soup provides a really great foundation and allows you to doctor it up with whichever spices you like. I feel like there are other directions you could go in, such as adding curry powder, turmeric and ground ginger. The flavors really meld together after a day or two as well so you'll get even more of the flavor from the spices you've added in. I hope you enjoy the soup and let me know what twist you put on it!

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