White Velvet Soup 😍

White Velvet Soup 😍

Hello! We are still in Vietnam. We are having an excellent time and we’re eating such a lot amazing food. We promise to share some photos soon and perhaps even some vietnamese recipes, except for now we are continuing with our series of guest bloggers.

Today we present Sarah from My New Roots!
You might remember that we mentioned My New Roots in our post about the Raw Chocolate Shake. What we wrote then still applies. it's one among the foremost interesting and fun to read, healthy food blogs out there. If you wish to eat nutritious food and you haven’t read it before, you've got to go over to My New Roots. you'll find great recipes, learn many interesting facts about food and have amusing while reading it. Enough said from us,


The snow just won’t stop. the planet is quiet and soft. It’s time for a bowl of soup.


It’s been quite while since I’ve posted a soup recipe, and this weather is serving as divine inspiration for a piping hot bowl of creamy food . It combines a couple of of my favorite things, roasted veggies and velvety lima beans, all blended up to make the foremost creamy, rich-tasting, delectable soup to cross my lips this New Year . And whether your 2011 resolution was to eat more whole foods, reduce , or crop on meat, you’ll be checking off all three with my White Velvet Soup that tastes like anything but deprivation – it’s down-right dreamy!

White food. It’s gotten a reasonably bad rap in recent years while our food focus has finally begun to shift from processed to whole foods; light bread to whole grain bread, polished rice to rice , white potatoes to sweet potatoes. this is often a really good thing so let’s move with the momentum!
However, there are some white foods that also belong to the entire foods family, boasting all types of nutritional benefits. This white velvet soup is a superb combination of the many white foods– cauliflower, onions, garlic, and lima beans – that aren't only delicious, but super health supportive. Here’s a thought of just how powerful these white foods are…


Cauliflower – As a superb source of vitamin K and a really good source of omega-3 fatty acids (in the shape of omega-3 fatty acid , or ALA), cauliflower provides us with two powerful anti-inflammatory nutrients. Cauliflower is additionally full of phytonutrients (those are the super-charged healthy compounds found exclusively in plants), like the familiar beta-carotene, also because the lesser-known beta-cryptoxanthin, caffeic acid, cinnamic acid, ferulic acid, quercetin, rutin, and kaempferol (there are going to be a quiz at the top of this post ;) This broad spectrum antioxidant support helps lower the danger of oxidative stress in our cells. By providing us with such an excellent array of antioxidant nutrients, cauliflower helps lower our cancer risk by helping us avoid chronic and unwanted oxidative stress.


Onions – Members of the Allium family (like garlic), onions of all colours are rich in sulfur-containing compounds that are liable for their pungent odors and for several of their health-promoting effects. Several servings of onion hebdomadally are sufficient to statistically lower your risk of some sorts of cancer.
Human studies have shown that onion can even help increase our bone density and should be of special benefit to women of menopausal age who are experiencing loss of bone density. additionally , there's evidence that ladies who have passed the age of menopause could also be ready to lower their risk of hip fracture through frequent consumption of onions. “Frequent” during this context means onion consumption on a daily basis! Pass the soup, please.


Garlic – The selenium in garlic can become a crucial a part of our body’s antioxidant system. A cofactor of peroxidase (one of the body’s most vital internally produced antioxidant enzymes), selenium also works with vitamin E during a number of important antioxidant systems. Garlic is additionally rich in another trace mineral, manganese, which also functions as a team player during a number of other important antioxidant defense enzymes, for instance , SOD . Studies have found that in adults deficient in manganese, the extent of HDL (the “good form” of cholesterol) is decreased.


Lima Beans – are a complete super food. they're loaded with protein (much like other legumes), and when eaten together with whole grains and whole grain products they supply the protein like that found in meat or dairy foods without the high calorie content or saturated fat. And once you eat lima beans rather than animal products, you furthermore may experience the health benefits of dietary fiber, which lowers cholesterol, stabilizes blood glucose , prevents constipation, but also helps prevent digestive disorders like irritable bowel syndrome and diverticulosis. only one cup of lima beans will offer you 65.8% of the daily value for fiber.


Surprised, are we? I told you some white foods deserved a touch love. Whole foods always have some quite health benefit because they're not processed, and thus contain all of the lovin’ nutrition nature intended.
This soup may be a total breeze to form – most of the work is completed for you within the oven! All it takes may be a quick blend up and you’re done. So simple. Who says gourmet food can’t be incredibly fast and easy?


White Velvet Soup

1 head cauliflower
2 medium onions
1 head garlic (about 6-8 cloves)
3 cups cooked lima beans (about 2 cans)
2 cups water
2 cups vegetable stock
juice of 1 lemon
sea salt to taste
olive oil
smoked paprika


Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. hack cauliflower into bite-sized chunks and place on a baking sheet. Drizzle with vegetable oil or melted ghee. Sprinkle with sea salt.
3. Peel onions and slice through chunks. Peel garlic cloves. Place onions and garlic baking sheet, drizzle with vegetable oil and sprinkle with sea salt.
4. Place all veggies in oven. Bake for 30-40 minutes until everything has golden edges and is nicely caramelized.
5. Let veggies cool slightly and increase blender along side all other ingredients except vegetable oil and paprika (process in batches if you've got alittle blender). Blend on high until very smooth. If you've got a Vita-Mix, i might highly recommend using it.
6. If the soup isn't hot enough after blending, transfer soup to an outsized pot and warm until steaming. If the soup is just too thick, simply add water to thin to your required consistency.
Bonus: for every bowl of soup, combine 1 tsp. extra virgin vegetable oil with 1/8 tsp. smoked paprika and drizzle as a garnish (this is optional, but there's something very delicious about the mellow richness of the soup, with a rather spicy and smoky accent).


Tip: I always highly recommend using beans you cook yourself rather than canned, because the flavour of freshly cooked beans is just better. If you select to use beans you’ve cooked yourself, reserve the cooking liquid and use in situ of the water and stock.


I hope you enjoy making this warm bowl of velvet for you and your lucky friends. Now I’m off to frolic within the snow to create up an appetite! This soup is on the stove and prepared to wrap me in warmth once I return.