"vegetable soups" news and stories

I agree with Deborah Madison's sentiment that soups are "almost universally popular." In fact, I can only think of a handful of people who don't like soups and, since their reason is that they don't really like vegetables, they're willing to eat meat-based soups and chilis. But I digress, as Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison's Kitchen is certainly a book for vegetable lovers, as well as those who don't limit themselves purely to meat-based soups. The recipes are vegetarian and most manage to make the vegetables that they feature even brighter and more flavorful than that would be in most other applications. Some of the recipes are very updated takes on classics and others are entirely innovative, so experienced cooks will have no problem picking out a few very original recipes. The instructions, however, are quite clear and as long as you are willing to be more involved in your cooking than is required by canned soup, even soup neophytes should be fine. Recipes include Senegalese-style peanut soup, Golden Turnip Soup with Fontina Cheese, Roasted Squash, Pear and Ginger Soup (sounds like a good choice for Thanksgiving) and Potato and Green Chile Stew with Cilantro Cream.

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I had a very long relationship with cauliflower. A whole head lasts one person (sometimes two) a long time, so I had to get creative. I didn't want to eat roasted curried cauliflower every night, no matter how good it was.

Cauliflower soup was an easy bet. Simply steam the florets along with whole cloves of garlic (I used four cloves and a half head of cauliflower) until the florets are impossibly soft. Puree in a food processor with the garlic, adding the steaming liquid to thin it out. You can also use about a ½ c. chicken stock or heavy cream, but I was trying to keep it as vegetarian as possible. The cauliflower on its own was flavorful enough for me. I thought about using a little bit of soy milk or silken tofu to the puree, but didn't want to interrupt the flavor of the cauliflower (though the garlic did that all by itself).

The garlic garnish are simply thin slices that fried about 45 seconds on each side in a little bit of olive oil. The soup tasted hot and cold.