We needed a quick and effortless supper on Sunday, since I had a mean flu and Heikki was hurrying to meet some friends. I decided to resort to my trusted veggie soup recipe, but instead of carrots I used lovely beets and the cauliflower that had been sitting in our fridge for a day or two. This was a success in all its simplicity – beets and cauliflower practically melted into one wonderful velvety soup, balanced by a little bite from lime and fresh red chili. And I could eat this soup for the color alone!
Since the sunflower that had decorated our living room for a few weeks had just started to wilt, I used a few of its petals to garnish our soup. They were actually quite tasty as well! I’m also thinking that coconut milk instead of the cashew nuts would probably be a nice tweak.
Here’s what I threw in the pot (enough for 3-4 as a main):
- 3 large beets
- 1 medium cauliflower
- 2 red onions, roughly chopped
- 1 red chili
- 3 cloves garlic, sliced
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 7 and 1/2 dl water
- 1 dl cashew nuts
- juice of 1 lime
- zest of 1/2 lime
- (pinch of cayenne)
I heated up the oil in the cooking pot and fried the onions until they’d browned. Meanwhile, I prepped the veggies: peeled and thinly sliced the beets, chopped the cauliflower, and de-seeded and sliced the chili.
When the onions were soft and browned, I added the chili to the pot, fried it for a bit, and added the beets, the cauliflower and the garlic. I fried the vegetables for a few more minutes and then added the water, the cashews, and the salt in the pot. Now, I cooked the soup until the beets were tender, for 20 minutes approximately.
I puréed the soup with our immersion blender until it was completely smooth, and stirred in the lime juice and the zest, a little cayenne pepper for extra heat, and checked the salt.
15 Comments
That looks absolutely fantastic. I am so glad you posted this, as I have some beets in my fridge right now that I need to do something with very soon.
Lovely! Everyone in Tallinn seems to have the flu right now. Hope you’re feeling better…
Thanks Eric and Rachel – I’m feeling much better now! Tallinn and Helsinki seem to share the same flu season, not surprising since we’re so close and the weather’s probably just about the same too…
Two foods my kids hated and I absolutely love. I like chunky soups tho-think this would still taste as good that way?
JanScholl – I don’t see why this wouldn’t work sans blending! I’m just not sure about the cashews, I’d probably process them with a little bit of water and add the resulting cream to thicken the soup.
There are so many soups around right now, but yours is the most beautiful!
P.S. I moved my blog to wordpress.
Tosi upea kuva!
Oh my goodness, that looks so beautiful. I am going to try it soon. What a great recipe and a beautiful photo.
The colour of the soup is so beautiful! And it sounds very tasty as well….
The soup’s color is enticing.
Nice recipe, would love to try it!
Superb for a February in Seattle! I felt the need to take a picture too, with my dollop of yoghurt on top.
I actually took a variation on it though, because I was in a bit of a hurry and was missing some ingredients. Almonds instead of cashews, lemon instead of lime, and red bell pepper + cajun seasoning instead of the cayenne, garlic, and red chili.
I made this last night with just a couple of changes: I didn’t have any peppers, so I tossed a bit of red pepper flakes into the pot while the onions were cooking. I also added a couple of veggie bullion cubes into the pot. I usually do this with all the soups I make. In the end it seemed a bit bland, so I added maybe 2 tablespoons of fish sauce, which really added a depth of flavor that was missing and it was delicious! My 15 year old daughter and my wife raved about it. I just found this web site yesterday after doing a search for a recipe using beets and cauliflower. I had some in the fridge that needed to be used and this recipe from “Tofu for Two” was the only one that came up from several different sources. I’ll be using it a lot from here on out. Thanks.
This recipe sounds divine, but I need a translation on the “dl”. I want to try it out tomorrow. Help Please!
Hi Pat – thanks for your comment. There are some quick conversions on the sidebar on the right that help – dl means a deciliter, and 1.0 dl equals 0.4 cup.
what’s the garnish?