Broccoli and Baby Cabbage Soup

When I don’t know what to do with all the vegetables I bought at the beginning of the week, I make soup or a pasta. I’m a dab hand at it too. The road to health is paved with good intentions, so out came the broccoli and baby cabbage. I had asked Brian to page through a plant based cookbook by Sarah Graham, Super Natural. I first heard about Sarah Graham shortly before lockdown in 2020 where she was offering free cooking classes on Yuppie Chef. I thought that was a very kind and generous thing to do. I decided to buy her Super Natural cookbook to return the favour.

I’m the “headchef ” here at home and responsible for the meal plan for the week. I do get a bit tired of making all the decisions when it comes to what we eat. I try to have a variety and usually have plenty of vegetables too. At the end of last week we had chatted about eating more plant based meals. I asked Brian to page through Sarah’s book so I could get an idea of his choice of plants as a meal option that didn’t include meat. He earmarked 3 choices, one was the creamy cauliflower soup with wild mushrooms.

The other’s were a gnocchi with peas and a taco bowl. Okay, so now I know what appeals to him when it comes to serving only plant based food. If I suggest a plant based meal, he always groans like a 3 year old forced to eat spinach. This was a different approach and it worked, so thank you Sarah Graham for your beautiful cookbook with very tantalising photos. Even though I didn’t use Sarah’s recipe, her recipe inspired this creation based on what I had in my vegetable drawers at the time. Go right ahead and make it with leeks and cauliflower too if you like.

My next problem was I didn’t have cauliflower or leeks, I used the leeks in my Leeks and Baby marrow Soup, last week. I did have broccoli and baby cabbage. Let’s face it, cabbage soup doesn’t make you want to rush out and shout the recipe from the rooftops. I mean can you hear yourself saying “oh you must try my cabbage soup!” ???? No, I hear you say, but do go ahead and try out this Broccoli and baby cabbage soup, it is so velvety and nourishing and a perfect way to get your dose of Vitamin C and a mega dose of potassium along with magnesium, iron and fibre. And fun fact did you know brocolli and cabbage are related to each other, so this is a great paring of flavours too.

Curried Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

Check out this recipe

Broccoli and Baby Cabbage Soup

Servings 4

Ingredients

• 1 tbs butter
• 2 tbs avocado oil
• 1 onion chopped
• 1 garlic clove finely chopped
• 1 head of broccoli cut into florets add after 20 minutes of cooking to preserve the green colour
• 1 small baby cabbage green chopped
• 1 potato cubed
• Squeeze of lemon
• 2 Tbls vegetable stock powder
• salt and pepper to taste
• enough water to cover about 1- 1.5l
• 1 spring rosemary
• 1 cup of milk
• 2 Tbs cream cheese

Garnish and sides

• 250 g portobellini mushrooms sliced
• 1 Tbls avocado oil
• Exotic mushrooms aubergines cut into chips and air fried or cut into wedges and air fried are a great alternative

Instructions

• In a large saucepan add the oil and butter and melt on med high heat. Add the onion and fry for 3 minutes until translucent. Add the garlic and fry for 30 seconds. Now add the cabbage and potato. Stir and add a squeeze of lemon along with the stock powder, salt and pepper and rosemary. Cover with water and cook for about 20 minutes or until potato is soft and cooked. Now add the broccoli and cook until done maybe 10 minutes. This will preserve the green of the broccoli. Using a high speed stick blender, puree until very smooth. Add the cream cheese and milk and check the seasoning. Puree again to ensure a velvety blend. You can pass it through a chinois sieve, but that's if you are aiming for restaurant quality smoothness.
  1 tbs butter, 2 tbs avocado oil, 1 onion chopped, 1 garlic clove finely chopped, 1 head of broccoli cut into florets, 1 small baby cabbage green chopped, 1 potato cubed, Squeeze of lemon, 2 Tbls vegetable stock powder, salt and pepper to taste, enough water to cover about 1- 1.5l, 1 spring rosemary, 1 cup of milk, 2 Tbs cream cheese
• While the soup is cooking add the avocado oil to a small frying pan. Heat to medium high and add the mushrooms and salt and pepper to season. Cook until golden brown.
  250 g portobellini mushrooms sliced, 1 Tbls avocado oil
• Serve the soup in bowl topped with the fried mushrooms and extra avocado oil.
• I also made a portion of air fried eggplant chips as a side dish

Notes

This soup is enough for 4 main meals or 8 starter portions.  

Air fried brinjals wedges are another alternative garnish if you don’t want to use mushrooms.

Course: Dinner

Keyword: baby cabbage, Broccoli, mushrooms