As soon as I saw at the supermarket that a local grower’s cauliflower was both abundant and at a very good price, a soup that my friend JJ has described to me last winter popped into my head. JJ had described three mouth watering ingredients: cumin, coconut milk, and of course cauliflower. Her recipe, gleaned from the Brit cookbook Moro East, sounded like something that our whole family would all like, but, sadly, we never got around to making it before the warm soup season ended for the year.
Well, luckily, JJ loaned us her cookbook as soon as the temperature started dropping again so that her recipe could inspire one of our own. While I stuck to the basic flavors of the soup, there are several changes that I hope might make it more kid-friendly.
They make a fantastic-looking chili butter and toasted pine nuts to drizzle on top of their soup. Because I find that, for most kids, very spicy will ruin the chances of them eating a dish and that pine nuts, alone, are an acquired taste, my recipe uses pumpkin seeds and little quesadillas instead. Cow’s milk is also added, here, to the soup base. If you or someone to whom you’re serving the soup does not want to or cannot eat the milk, then warm up some almond milk slowly over a low flame and stir it in instead. Your mini-chef can choose whichever Halloween or Fall shapes that you have on hand to make the quesadillas, but we liked the way these little bats floated over our soup.
Cumin-Cauliflower Soup with Bat Quesadillas
For the soup:
*2 large heads of cauliflower, washed and chopped so that the florets are ready to use
*3 large white onions, chopped
*3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
*4 T. butter or olive oil, or a mixture of both
*1 t. cinnamon
*1/4 c. cumin seeds
*pinch of cayenne
*20 oz. coconut milk
*1 1/2 c. milk
*1/4 c. pepitas
*white pepper (or, of course, black)
*salt
For the Quesadillas:
*whole grain tortillas
*Monterey Jack cheese, grated or mild goat cheese, room temperature
In a large stockpot over low heat, saute the onions in the butter or oil till soft and translucent, about 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, toast the cumin seeds in a heavy-bottomed pan. Stir, watch, and smell. They will brown a bit and smell devine when they’re ready to take off of the heat. Pour them into your mortar and pestle, and you and your mini-chef can take turns grinding them up to a powder.
Now, do the same with the pumpkin seeds. Toast, watch, smell, stir. When they’re browned, take them off the heat. You can leave them whole or grind them coarsely, as you like.
When the onions are soft, stir in the cumin, the cinnamon, soem salt, and the pinch of cayenne. Cook over medium heat for five minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for one minute longer.
Add the cauliflower, stirring and combining everything, and then put a lid on your pan. Allow the cauliflower to steam like that for 10 minutes, take the lid off, stir, and recover to steam. Do that three more times: 10 minutes, lid off, stir, recover. By the last time, your cauliflower should be pretty mushy and ready for you to smash a bit with your spoon.
Time to add the coconut milk. Stir it in, and let everything cook with the lid off for a few minutes. Puree the soup with an immersion blender. Turn the heat down to low while you prepare the quesadillas.
For the quesadillas, you will first preheat your oven to 200 degrees F. Let your mini-chef pick out favorite Fall or Halloween shaped cookie cutters. Place a whole grain tortilla on a wooden cutting board and help your Yummy cut out shapes. Make sure that you have two of every shape so that you can make them into quesadillas. Spread out all your shapes and pair them up with their “twins”. Sprinkle one of the twins with cheese, and then put the other twin on top, like when you’re making a sandwich.
When you’re done cutting out shapes for everyone, it will be time for a Big Person to take back over. Heat up a frying pan over med-high heat.
Put as many of the quesadillas in the pan as you can fit while being able to comfortably flip them over. When one side is done and nicely browned, flip the quesadilla and brown the other side. While you’re doing the other batches of quesadillas, put the finished batches in the oven on a baking sheet to stay warm and to melt the cheese even more.
Back to the soup: Stir in the milk, salt, and white pepper to taste. Turn the heat up to medium low. Stir very often till the soup is your desired temperature. (We like to serve the kids’ soup first so that it cools down enough by the time we sit down for a meal.) Ladle out individual servings of the soup, and top them with the little quesadillas and a few pumpkin seeds. Serve right away.
