CAULIFLOWER, CARROT + SWEET POTATO SOUP

Typically, Sundays are days I do some cooking. Even though this weekend is a long weekend, I kept to my usual routine. I am still ripening tomatoes in the basement and I had about half a fruit box filled with tomatoes that needed some attention. I decided to puree the tomatoes in the blender and then cook them down in order to concentrate them and get rid of some of their juice. After four or five hours on the stove I will let the sauce cool down in the pot and then freeze it in portion size freezer bags. With the blender being used for tomatoes, I decided I should use it to make soup. The following recipe is adapted from one of my favorite cookbooks by Norene Gilletz called "Mean Lean i Yumm!" Her cookbook has wonderful low-fat recipes. The recipe is adaptable for using a variety of vegetables so you can mix and match. The recipe calls for pureeing the soup at the end of cooking the vegetables but before adding the milk. You can use your blender at the start and finely chop raw vegetables to be added to the recipe. If you do that, you need to add water to the blender, otherwise the batches of vegetables that you put in the blender won't get chopped as easily. It reminds me of making a smoothie.

Ingredients

1 large onion chopped

1 stalk of celery chopped

1/2 red pepper chopped

2 cloves of garlic minced

1 tbsp olive or vegetable oil

1/2 cauliflower chopped

1 large sweet potato chopped

3 large carrots chopped

2 parsnips chopped

7 cups of vegetable or chicken broth

1 cup skim milk or soy milk

2 tbsp fresh dill or 1 tsp dried

1/2 tsp dried thyme

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

• Heat oil in large soup pot and saute the onions, celery, sweet pepper and garlic on medium heat for about 5 minutes.
• Add the cauliflower, sweet potato, carrots and parsnips to the pot. Saute for a few minutes.
• Add the stock, cover and simmer for about 30 minutes until the vegetables are tender.
• You need to puree the soup, either the whole pot or half to two thirds. You can puree using a blender, a puree hand wand or a potato masher. When chopping the vegetables before adding them to the pot at the start of the recipe, I decided to finely chop the carrots, cauliflower, sweet potato and parsnips in the blender. It took several sessions as this is a lot of vegetables. I did not chop the celery, onions and sweet pepper using a blender but did it using a knife and cutting board.
• Add the milk, dill and thyme and salt and pepper to taste. This recipe makes about 8 servings.