Cauliflower and Roasted Red Bell Pepper Soup

Submitted by batya

"I had bought red bell peppers and cauliflower on sale, and wanted to use them before they died. I searched around on the internet, and made this recipe up using ingredients I had in my kitchen. It was delicious, hearty, and healthy."

 

• Ready In: 1hr
• Ingredients: 7
• Serves: 4-6

ingredients

• 4 small red bell peppers, halved and seeded
• 5 -7 garlic cloves (do not remove outer skin)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1⁄4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 -2 head cauliflower, chopped up
• 1 quart vegetable broth (I used Imagine boxed vegetable broth, you can use any broth you want)

directions

1. Turn on broiler.
2. flatten out the bell pepper halves and arrange them on a baking sheet.
3. Sprinkle a few garlic cloves around in between on the baking sheet, leaving the cloves in the outer rapper
4. very lightly drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil over the peppers and garlic, and rub around a bit with your hands.
5. broil the peppers and garlic on High for about 10-15 minutes, until the pepper skin is black and bubbly.
6. In the meantime, heat about 1 Tbl of olive oil and add the onion. after about a minute, add the cayenne.
7. cook until onions soft, about 3-5 minutes.
8. add chopped cauliflower to the pot of onions, and mix around.
9. add entire box of imagine broth (or 1qt of whatever you are using).
10. bring to boil and then simmer for 20 minutes.
11. take the peppers and garlic out of the oven.
12. peel the peppers after they cool, and slip the garlic out of the skin.
13. chop up the peppers in small to medium pieces. unless you blend it at the end, these wont get much smaller in the soup.
14. add to the pot and simmer for about 10-20 minues more.
15. Mix everything well, mashing up the cauliflower.
16. You can puree this, but I didn't have a cuisinart or pureer, so i just ate it as is. Add crushed black pepper and salt if needed.
17. you can also add a squirt of lemon and olive oil before serving.

Reviews

[Chef 565650 Jim]

A good basic recipe that can be modified depending on what you have in the fridge. I took a holed grill BBQ basket and placed the following: 2 huge red bells, 1 small red jallepeno pepper, 1 tomato, 1 parnip, 1 carrot, 1 head of garlic, 1 onion, & 1 okra. I oiled them all with EVOO. In a soup pot with a quart of Swanson's vegetable broth, I placed 1/2 head of cauliflower & stem, 6 green beans, & 2 brussel sprouts and cooked all until soft. I cooked the grilled vegetables on low for 15 - 20 minutes until soft and charred. I covered the BBQ vegetables with a lid and let the skins loosen on the bells. I then took all the vegetables and ran them through the food procesor and returned everything to the soup pan. I added 1/2 tsp. of cumin, 1/4 tsp. of Tumeric (because it is good for you), 1 tsp. of Italian Seasoning, ground black pepper & salt and cooked everthing for an additional 5 - 10 minutes to make sure everything was soft & flavors blended. I took wide soup bowls and placed a few tablespoons of heavy cream in the bottom of the bowls and added the hot soup over the cold cream. If you pour slowly close to the cream, it will creep up the sides of the bowl and make a white halo in the soup bowl. I then topped the bowl with a thin slice of sharp cheddar, a few crumbles of blue cheese, and a few fresh basil leaves. It looked beautiful and tasted wonderful. I guess the message is to let your items on hand dictate the ingedients for soups such as this. I got rid of a variety of "bits & pieces" in the fridge but it was a beautiful red color with no real visible hint as to contents. I picked one of the last okras on the way to the BBQ, and my wife hates them, but had NO IDEA that the soup had green beans, okra, brussel sprouts, & a cauliflower stem (which she would have thrown out). The single small roasted jallapeno from the garden gave the soup just a hint of heat (she also will NOT eat any type of hot chilli). It all had a delicious blended flavor and it would rate high on the nutritional scale because of the variety and colors of vegetables used. Try a variation of something like this please. Jim in So. Calif.