I know Wednesdays are supposed to be about reviews and I know it’s probably rude to review your own quick hasty-tasty dinner-making, but if it bothers you, pretend someone else made this okay?

Okay, now we have that out of the way, I would like to introduce you to the very easy, very cheap, quick, really quite healthy and ridiculously tasty (for what is in it) dinner that is my:

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

This soup is the kind of thing you make when you have no idea what is for dinner and you walk into the supermarket and find that cauliflowers as big as your head are $1.50 each. (And yes, I know it looks like high-quality wall-paper paste with speckles, but you try photographing cauliflower soup!  It tastes good.)

Step one: Buy two good-sized cauliflowers

Step two: If you don’t already have some in the pantry, get yourself some Massel chicken stock powder.
NOTE ON STOCK: If you are the domestic goddess type (at least this week) who has home-made chicken stock in the freezer, skip this bit.  If you aren’t, and you can’t find Massel, take a few minutes to find a stock powder that is made of actual food, rather than a string of numbers.  It will taste much better and you won’t glow in the dark.  Failing that, buy liquid stock, but water it down, as they are usually very salty.

Step three: Get a 200ml or 300ml carton of sour cream (light if you like. Doesn’t matter)

Step four: Grab some garlic bread or rustic, crusty fresh bread

Method

Get out a large pot and put the kettle on (on the heat, not the pot, in case you were wondering).

Chop the cauliflower and shove in pot.  Chop the hard bits small, so they cook quickly, but otherwise, don’t fuss over this.  It’s going to be smooshed anyway.  Just get out a big knife and massacre that sucker.

Cover the cauli with boiling water and add the stock powder.  I use one heaped tsp of Massel powder per 500ml of water, roughly.  Adjust depending on what you are using.  You won’t need seasoning, all those prepared stocks are salty enough. (Domestic Goddesses can work out seasoning for themselves).  FWIW, the water doesn’t have to be boiling, it just makes cooking the soup faster.

Bring to boil and simmer rapidly until the cauliflower is really soft.  Don’t be impatient here.  The key to a really creamy soup is to wait until the cauli is just about mashing itself in the water.  I also simmer with the lid off, to reduce the liquid a bit, again for creaminess.

When it is cooked, whizz it with a stick blender and whizz in the sour cream.  You can have it without the sour cream, if you like.  It’s still nice.  But the sour cream gives a kick to the flavour that makes it very special.

Serve it with the bread and a pepper grinder handy.  This amount will serve 6 for dinner.  Adjust up or down, depending on the size of your pot!

Enjoy!

If anyone has any suggestions for other natural stock powders, please share.  I started using Massels because it is gluten-free and vegetarian and I have coeliac and veggie friends who eat at my house.  I kept using it because it is convenient and tastes much better than the artificial ones.  But I’m not sure it is available everywhere, so more info gratefully received.


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