Soup, Salad, and Seconds

I've been promising creative recipes with veggies, so here you go!

The first is another delicious salad, inspired by this Kickin' Kale Salad recipe.

Kale Salad

Ingredients:
Serves 2 
2-3 cups torn kale leaves
2 roasted red peppers, chopped
1/4 red onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 can cannellini or garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
2-3 Tbsp. capers (or you can use green olives, cut in half)
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
Olive oil, enough to coat salad when tossed
Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste

Preparation:
Mix it all together! Kale actually tastes better when it sits for a little bit with the olive oil and lemon, so don't be afraid to toss the salad a half hour or so before serving.

A delicious addition to this meal is a wintery soup, like roasted cauliflower soup. This recipe was inspired by this recipe from Cooking Light.

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients

Serves 4

1 head of cauliflower florets

2 tsp. olive oil

Dash of salt

4 slices of bacon

1 Tbsp. olive oil

3/4 cup chopped yellow onion

4 garlic cloves, minced

4 cups unsalted chicken broth

1 cup water

1/2 cup almond milk (or half-and-half)

1/4 cup chopped parsley

3 Tbsp. sliced almonds

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Toss cauliflower with olive oil and salt. Arrange in single layer in jelly-roll pan coated with cooking spray. Bake for 40 minutes or until tender and browned. Stir once after 30 minutes.
2. While cauliflower cooks, cook bacon in grill pan. Remove from heat and crumble once bacon is cooked through.
3. Heat olive oil in a pot. Add onion and garlic, saute 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add cauliflower, stock, and water to pot. Bring to boil then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. 
4. Remove from heat, stir in milk. 
5. Blend mixture with immersion blender - a new Christmas gift that I've loved using!
6. Top with almonds and parsley. 

This soup is so creamy, you wouldn't guess that it's made from a vegetable! 

We have the soup and salad from this post's title, but where's the seconds? 

Round II: Roasted Cauliflower & Potato Soup

As another option, you can make the cauliflower soup into potato soup. I had leftovers from the cauliflower soup that I froze. A week or so later, I added quartered Yukon gold potatoes, chicken stock, onion, thyme, a bay leaf, salt and garlic to a Dutch oven. I let it simmer for 35 minutes then added in the cauliflower soup. I let it simmer another 10 or so minutes. Top with bacon crumbles, cheese, and green onions if desired. Voila... Delicious new soup!