Soup Week! Curried Cauliflower Soup and Quinoa Spinach Soup (Both Vegan)

Prior to four weeks ago, I had never made soup.  It seems amazing now, but I really thought that soups required hours of work, and that tasty soups require even more work and constant attention to achieve their flavor.  Needless to say, I am very pleased that I put those notions of excessive work for an ok product to rest when I made my first two soups — a curried cauliflower soup and quinoa spinach soup, both from the January 2009 issue of the Vegetarian Times.  

The recipe for the curried cauliflower soup is now online at:  http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/10790.  The recipe states that the secret ingredient is the apple, which I definitely agree with — it adds a sweetness and complexity to the soup that allows you to really eat a full bowl without feeling bored.  I also substituted a hot Madras curry powder for the standard curry powder called for in the recipe to give it more heat, and next time, I might add more of that type of curry powder or more pepper to give it a bit more spice.

I deviated from the recipe slightly by only pureeing about 3/4 of the
soup in a food processor as I prefer soups with less uniform
textures.   Next time I make the soup, I think I'll only puree half of
the cooked soup to enjoy even more chunks of cauliflower and apple in
the soup.   I also will buy a crusty loaf of wheat bread to accompany the soup and truly make its multiple servings (as evidenced by the picture below of how much leftover soup I had) a filling meal.

The second soup I made — a few days after the curried cauliflower soup — was a quinoa spinach soup.  It only required an astonishing 5 ingredients, and I added a few extra things from my kitchen to give it more of a kick.   I added in half a jalapeno (chopped) and 1/2 a green bell pepper into the red onion saute.  To make it an even heartier soup, I added an additional 1/8 cup quinoa and 1/4 cup water while the soup was cooking.  I probably should have added more water because the soup ended up being incredibly thick, which was fine but felt less like a soup when I reheated it.  This soup had more of a powerful flavor than the curried cauliflower, and I think made for a more interesting set of back-t0-back 3 or 4 meals.  The recipe can also be found online now at:  http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/10816?section=.