Potato, Cauliflower, & White Bean Soup

This soup was created out of necessity. Much like the food in this month's Movies and Munchies pick.

Movies and Munchies and Lit Happens are two facebook groups I'm in. Movies and Munchies is more of a foodie blogger group (watch the movie and cook up something inspired by the movie) while Lit Happens is more of a traditional book club, though online based. Some of the participants are also foodie bloggers and post about books, I usually don't...unless there's a movie tie-in like this month.

In Lit Happens, one member posted a list of "must read books" and mentioned she wanted to read The Road and since several of us are members of both groups, it was only natural that we'd watch the movie for Movie and Munchies (I love a book-movie tie in!)

Here's my Goodreads review of the book:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Honestly, I felt myself wanting more from this book.

What exactly happened to the US/world? What approximate part of the US are we even in? I imagined the North/West Coast as I read (the movie was the East Coast).

Overall, the book is pretty choppy and the ending is very abrupt (I very much dislike abrupt endings).

Also, I wouldn't have had a problem with the author's disregard of punctuation (especially apostrophes, but also commas), if he'd ignored them consistently (like ee cummings ignoring capitalization) consistently, however, in this case it was very sporadic and confusing to follow as a reader (at least in the kindle version)

View all my reviews

Yeah, so the book was not high on my list. Then I watched the movie. In its defense, it followed the book pretty well. But overall, was not my cup of tea. It was dark, depressing, and icky at times.

If I were to go strictly on book/movie inspirations for this one it would have been barely a handful of grains/seeds or canned goods.

I decided to go for the idea of the thing and make a dish based on necessity.

Dude had his wisdom teeth removed earlier this summer and I needed soft, smooth (not too hot!) foods for him to eat. Yes, he could he junky stuff like boxed mac & cheese but he won't touch pudding or yogurt with a 10-foot pole!

My biggest goal was to make something that included protein and vegetables since I knew those were 2 food categories that would be the hardest to eat in those first few days post-surgery.

Dude loves soup so I decided to make a take on my loaded potato soup.  I added plenty of veggies plus beans (white so they’d blend in with the potatoes once pureed) and greek yogurt.

This was a great meal that sustained him the couple days while he recovered enough to eat normally again!

Potato, Cauliflower, & White Bean Soup

2 tablespoon butter

1 onion, diced

4 stalks celery, diced

3 carrots, peeled and diced

3 cloves garlic, smashed

1 head cauliflower, but into florets

1 pound potatoes, diced

2 (15 ounce) cans cannellini beans 

2 quarts chicken broth

1 bay leaf

3 sprigs fresh thyme

1 (5.3 ounce) container plain Greek yogurt

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

½ teaspoon salt, or to taste

½ teaspoon sriracha, or to taste

Heat the butter in a large soup pot over medium heat.  Add the onion, celery, and carrots and cook for 5 minutes or until starting to soften.  Add the garlic and cook for another minute.

Add the cauliflower, potatoes, beans, chicken broth, bay leaf, and thyme.  Bring to a boil.  Cover and reduce to a simmer.  Cook for 20 minutes or until the potatoes and cauliflower are very soft.

Remove from heat, then remove and discard the bay leaf and thyme.  Puree the soup with an immersion blender.  Stir in the greek yogurt and cheese until melted.  Taste and season with salt and sriracha.

Serve immediately, cooling a bowl to lukewarm for any dental surgery patients.