Recipes: Curried Cauliflower and Chickpea Soup with Coconut Milk

Having made this soup just last night, I still sort of remember the recipe! Pretty impressive, right? Since I never follow recipes, and am bad at writing ingredients down for all of my own recipes, I often find myself at a loss for what, exactly, I put in that dish when it comes time to share it with others... But, I'm working on getting better actually-writing-recipes-down habits!

Curried Cauliflower and Chickpea Soup with Coconut Milk

• 2 medium onions, diced
• 1/4 cup each of finely diced celery and carrots
• 2-3 garlic cloves, smashed and finely diced
• 1 whole head of cauliflower, tough core and any tougher stems removed, sliced and diced into nice small pieces. You want this to really combine with the broth, not just float around in big chunks
• A bit of veggie oil
• 1 19 oz/540 ml can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 4 cups veggie broth
• About 2 cups water
• About 1 cup coconut milk
• About 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
• 2 tablespoons fresh (or frozen) grated ginger
• About 2 teaspoons turmeric powder
• 1/2-1 teaspoon ground coriander
• About 1/2 teaspoon black (or preferably multi-colour mix) pepper
• A dash of ground cinnamon
• A dash of hot pepper flakes or cayenne pepper
• Salt to taste
• Honey or ginger syrup (we always have Ginger People's ginger syrup on hand, which I love to use, but I recognize that this is not a pantry staple for most people!)

Add cumin seeds to large pot, toast lightly dry or add oil right away (toasting dry gives a better flavour, I believe, but if you're prone to burning things just add seeds and oil at the same time). Once seeds have toasted a bit, add onions, celery, and carrots, and salt lightly. Cook until softened nicely, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and cook for a couple of minutes more, then add all other spices, continuing to fry another minute or so. Add cauliflower, stir to coat, then add broth, and 1-2 cups water (depending on how thick you want your soup to be. You can always add a bit more water later!). Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for about 10 minutes. Add chickpeas, more salt, and a bit of honey or syrup, cover once more, and continue to simmer until cauliflower is very soft. Once it's completely softened, stir in coconut milk, and enjoy!

Salad Ideas: Cucumber, Apple, and Walnut Salad in Sweet Dijon Vinaigrette

I keep not posting because so often I don't have pictures of the food I make (since my beautiful and much loved digital SLR died last year, I haven't had a camera that I actually enjoy using), and it only feels like a proper food post if I include photos. However, I'm going to try not to let that stop me from posting, though I do also hope to start using my father's very nice camera in the immediate future, and get a new camera for myself this coming year. But for now, I wanted to share a tasty salad I made tonight, without pictures!

Salad

• 1 large cucumber, sliced in fairly thin rounds
• 1-2 stalks celery, sliced thinly
• 1 apple, cored, halved, and sliced thinly
• A handful of walnuts

Dressing

I don't have amount for this one I'm afraid, but I can still give the ingredients!

• Grapeseed oil or other mild tasting oil
• Red wine vinegar
• Seedy dijon mustard
• Ginger honey (alternately ginger syrup, or honey and some freshly grated or powdered ginger)
• Salt

Mix dressing, toss with salad, and enjoy! This was a success with all salad eating family members, and my dad who usually isn't as into salads actually came back for thirds, never mind seconds.

I feel like lots of people have the idea that salad is boring, and approach it with a grudging attitude of getting through this annoying healthy thing as soon as possible. But with a little bit of creativity, there are SO many really tasty things you can do with salads. Salads are cool.

Squash Soup on a Fall Day

Fall is most definitely here, with cool days, cold nights, and the leaves starting to shade into their autumn glory. An annual ritual of fall, from the time I was old enough to toddle along behind my dad with a small log, is stacking the wood by the side of the house, to keep us warm through the winter. We always get it delivered in September, and then for the next couple weeks, cloud or shine, my father, sister, and I are out stacking wood almost every day.

The finished wood stack, circa 2009.

My sister is away at a camp right now, so it's currently dropped to a two-person job, and to make up for that my dad and I spent quite a bit of time today stacking.

After coming in today after the second stacking session of the day, and making and sharing some hot chocolate, I decided to make one of the best things for a fall day: winter squash soup.

Even though I don't look great in this shot, it's so rare anyone gets a pic of me cooking I had to include it.

My (vague) recipe for roasted acorn squash and black bean soup:

• 1 medium acorn squash
• 2-3 stalks celery
• 3 small onions
• 3 large garlic cloves
• 1 dried or fresh hot chili pepper
• 4 cups veggie stock or broth
• 1-2 cans black beans (I used a can and a half)
• Several tablespoons of olive oil
• Several tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon cane sugar
• 1-2 tablespoons cumin seeds
• 1-2 teaspoons freshly ground pepper (I use a five pepper blend, but black pepper should work fine)
• A dash of cinnamon
• Salt to taste

Roasted squash. 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (Fahrenheit)
2. With skin left on, cut the acorn squash into approximately one inch segments, and brush with a half-half mixture of olive oil and maple syrup, plus freshly ground pepper. Put on a cookie sheet and bake until the top starts to turn golden brown.
3. Meanwhile, finely chop the celery, garlic cloves, and onions. Pour several tablespoons of olive oil in a large-ish pot or dutch oven, set it on the stove top at medium-low heat, and add the chili slit length-wise but otherwise left whole, as well as the onions, garlic, and celery. Cook until the veggies have greatly reduced, turned light brown, and are starting to stick and brown on the bottom of the pot (in other words, well caramelized)
4. Dry toast the cumin seeds in a small fry-pan on medium heat until fragrant and slightly darker in colour (it should only take a couple minutes. Make sure you don't burn them!), then grind (I use a mortar and pestle, but I'm sure a spice or coffee grinder are also useful).
5. Add the ground cumin, about a teaspoon of freshly ground pepper, and a dash of cinnamon to the pot, then add 4 cups veggie stock and 1-2 cups water, as well as the roasted squash (skin removed), including caramelized browned bits, as long as they don't seem burnt. Bring to a boil, add the beans, approximately 2 tablespoons of maple syrup and 1 tablespoon of natural cane sugar, and salt to taste. 
6. Simmer for anywhere between 10 and 35 minutes. Cooking longer will let the flavors combine more, but the squash disintegrates if you cook it much at all, so it depends what consistency you want your soup to be.

All done! Mmmm.

This soup was a big hit with my mother, who loves soup, and I was surprised just how much I loved it, as I tend to be a lot pickier about soup! It's a really warming, cozy, tasty fall soup, with just enough heat to keep it interesting. Plus, it's super simple and quick to make (I even used canned beans, and bottled stock, instead of cooking my own as I often do)!

Now I just have to figure out what yummy thing I want to do with the butternut squash that's currently hanging around the kitchen...

(Thanks to my mom Debbie for all of the pictures in this post besides the one of the woodpile!)