Recipe of the Month: Smoked Cauliflower Soup

This is going to be a very full weekend. Tomorrow I'm spending the entire afternoon with my Citizens' Climate Lobby chapter, watching CCL's Fall Virtual Conference (which technically has already started, but tonight's session is just a "reception" that I don't consider important). On Sunday, we've got a role-playing game session scheduled in the afternoon, after which we'll just have time to grab some dinner before dashing off to a rehearsal for the Cotillion Singers—an ad hoc group that forms once a year and learns four or five pieces for a single performance at the Princeton Country Dancers Winter Cotillion. So tonight is about the only time I have free to dash off a quick blog entry about November's Recipe of the Month: the Smoked Cauliflower Soup from Everyday Happy Herbivore.

This is the fifth recipe we've tried from this cookbook, which we picked up at Half Price Books last Christmas, and all the others were varying degrees of lackluster. The Spicy Orange Broccoli was decidedly lacking in orange flavor, the Chickpea Tenders were dry and crumbly, and the low-sugar, high-fiber Glazed Pumpkin Biscuits and Apple Fritter Cups were both stodgy and insufficiently sweet. So I was feeling a bit disillusioned with the book, but I decided to give it one more try, this time with a simple recipe that looked like it could hardly go wrong. Then, if that one proved as disappointing as the others, I'd pass on the book to someone else.

The Smoked Cauliflower Soup recipe certainly looked straightforward enough. The first step is chopping up a whole cauliflower and boiling it until tender. While that's going, you whip up a soup base from a cup of nondairy milk (we used soy) seasoned with onion powder, garlic powder, Cajun seasoning, salt, paprika, and liquid smoke. Then you add the cooked cauliflower, blend it all together, and heat it through. 

It seemed pretty foolproof, and yet Brian was wary. Based on his knowledge and our previous experiences with this cookbook, he was convinced the amount of seasoning in the recipe was going to be woefully inadequate. So he doubled the liquid smoke from an eighth of a teaspoon to a quarter, tripled the Cajun seasoning from a half-teaspoon to a half-tablespoon, and bumped up the salt from a tiny dash to a robust teaspoon and a quarter. He also decided the meal needed more protein, so he supplemented the dish with some roasted chickpeas. These were even simpler than the soup itself: he just drained a can of chickpeas, tossed them with a half tablespoon of canola oil and a teaspoon of Cajun seasoning (to match the soup), and baked them at 450F for 20 minutes. 

Both these alterations turned out to be wise choices. The thick soup had a texture rather like Cream of Wheat, and without Brian's additional seasonings, it would probably have tasted pretty much like it too. Instead, it was reasonably flavorful, and sprinkling the chick peas on top gave it a bit of textural interest as well. In fact, I thought the chickpeas were by far the best part of the meal, and I saw the soup as little more than a vehicle for carrying them. Brian liked it better than I did, enough to take seconds at dinner and willingly polish off the leftovers for lunch the next day, but he didn't absolutely love it. All in all, we both agreed that while there was nothing wrong with the soup recipe, it wasn't nearly as interesting as most of the other things we do with cauliflower, such as his aloo gobi and the roasted cauliflower dish that was our Recipe of the Month for June. So while we both liked it all right, we don't see any compelling reason to make it again.

All in all, I'd give this dish a solid C, maybe a C plus. It's a passing grade, but I'm not sure it's a good enough one to bring up the cookbook's GPA to a reasonable level—particularly when you consider how much Brian had to amplify the seasoning in the recipe just to get it up to that passing score. So I can't decide if we should keep tinkering with the cookbook or give up on it. Maybe we should pick out just one more interesting-looking recipe, give that one a try, and let that be the deciding vote. If that dish is a keeper, so is the cookbook; if not, it's time to write the book off as a loss.

Taming the hell strip, part 2

So, I realize there's not much to see in this photo. But there's a lot more going on below the surface. 

Remember how, four months back, Brian first embarked on his project to transform our hell strip (the narrow sliver of land between the sidewalk and street) from a ragged patch of weeds to an actual planting bed? At that time, we planted about one-third of it and assumed the rest would have to wait until spring. But on further consideration, Brian thought it would make more sense to plant seeds now, in the fall, rather than start seedlings indoors and transplant them in springtime. That way, they'd get a head start on germination, the same way the weeds do, and they wouldn't have to deal with transplant shock. 

Last weekend, we started the process. Brian used our King of Spades shovel to chop up the turf into blocks, which I turned over and whacked with a trowel to knock as much dirt off the roots as possible before dumping the top layer into a bucket destined for the compost bin. Then, while Brian went to empty the buckets and fetch his supplies, I set to work with the trowel excavating a narrow channel running along the edge of the road. When he returned, he set down one of the two-by-fours he'd brought into this channel, forming a boundary for the bed. (The main reason he had to do this is that there's a curb cut along that stretch of sidewalk, so he couldn't rely on the curb to form a boundary. But the two-by-fours will also form an extra barrier to keep the plants from impinging on the sidewalk and make the bed look more defined.) 

We then worked together to dig out a similar channel along the other side, next to the sidewalk, and fill it in with a second two-by-four. After that, Brian had to get out his big tape measure and measure the exact distance from the end of this section to the end of the bed, right at the property line, and go inside to cut the boards to the right length. Actually, he had to break one of them up into two smaller pieces, because there's a sewer access pipe right at the edge of the sidewalk. So he fitted two shorter pieces around it, one on either side, and capped the whole area off with a short piece at the end.

At this point, we had a nice, empty planting bed, but we weren't quite ready to plant in it. We'd used up all the free mulch we got last summer, and Brian didn't think it would be a good idea to put the seeds in without a layer of mulch to protect them. We could have used leaves, as we do in some of our other beds, but he wasn't confident they'd stay put in such an exposed area. And by that point, it was getting a bit late in the day to run out to the store and buy some. So we left the bed empty until we had a chance to pick some up at Lowe's (along with a few other things I'll tell you about shortly).

Yesterday, with mulch in hand, we were ready to finish the job. We had three kinds of seeds to plant: salvia, which we already have some of in the first part of the bed; rudbeckia, or black-eyed Susans, which we'd picked up a couple of packets of at Ocean State Job Lot; and golden ragwort, a native plant that we got a small packet of as a freebie at a town fair. It combines low-growing foliage with tall flower spikes that bloom in April and May, making it a good complement to the salvia and rudbeckia, which bloom from midsummer into fall. And all three are supposed to be reasonably deer resistant, a key requirement if we want the plants to survive in an area where deer stroll right up the street browsing on anything they can reach. (It's less clear how the new flowers will fare against groundhogs, but we'll have to wait and see.)

To ensure a good mix of the three varieties throughout the bed, I worked out a staggered arrangement for planting them: ragwort on the near side of the bed, then salvia about four inches along on the opposite side, then back to the near side for rudbeckia, then across to the other for another ragwort, and so on. Brian marked up a ruler with pieces of masking tape to indicate the lengthwise spacing, then placed the roll of masking tape on the ground at one end to mark the spot where his seeds would go. He added a small pinch of seeds in the circle formed by the tape, moved it to the next spot, added a pinch of seeds there, and continued the pattern along the whole length of the bed. My job was to scoot along beside him, handing him the packets of seeds in the correct order, so he wouldn't have to juggle all three. He had to be pretty sparing with his pinches—no more than three or four seeds at a time—to make the ragwort and salvia seeds last the whole length of the bed, but he managed it with a tiny bit to spare. I sprinkled the remaining ragwort and rudbeckia seeds in amongst the existing salvia plants in the older portion of the bed so everything would eventually have the same mix of flowers. Once that was done, we covered everything up with a nice layer of mulch to protect the seeds from wind and hungry birds (and, equally important, make it clear that the hell strip is now a planting bed and not merely a bare patch of ground). Then, as a finishing touch, I took one of the phone line insulators from the edges of our other flowerbed and set it over top of the sewer pipe opening. Besides looking nicer, this will keep the pipe from getting covered up by mulch, so it will be easy to locate.

All told, yesterday's portion of the job took about an hour, and we had lovely weather for it. Then, not content to rest on his laurels (or ragworts), Brian went on to tackle a couple of other jobs that needed doing in the front yard. To put this in context, I need to go back a month or so. One morning in early October, Brian and I noticed a lot of hustle and bustle going on in our next-door neighbor's yard, which turned out to be a bunch of workers attempting to unclog a blocked sewer line. They eventually worked out that to do the job properly, they'd have to dig up and replace the entire line, all the way out to the curb. And although it was technically his sewer line, a good portion of it was on our property. (Apparently these two lots used to be one larger lot, which would explain that unused curb cut in the middle of our curb.) To get at the pipe, they'd have to tear out the hedge on that side of our yard and rip up the underlying ground.

Unfortunately, we were about to head off to Virginia for a weekend with friends, so we couldn't stick around to supervise this process. We told him to do whatever he needed to do and not worry about replacing our hedge, which wasn't in such great shape anyway. And the workers took us at our word, because when we returned home, one whole side of our yard was missing. There was just a big crater in the ground, surrounded by caution tape and plastic sheeting.

Over the next couple of days, the workers filled in the hole, leaving a huge patch of bare dirt, and cleared away the plastic. At that point, it became apparent that a lot more than just the hedge was missing. The excavation had torn up part of the slate flagstone path that led from our front door to the street, and at least three stones were completely gone. It had also damaged our raspberry trellis, shearing off the lines and ripping out both the U-post at the near end and the anchor stake we'd secured it to. Brian was able to find the post, but it was too badly bent to reuse, and one of the three turnbuckles attached to it was missing. And, since the lost post had also been one corner of the invisible deer fence around our front flowerbed, that was damaged as well.

Luckily, none of this damage is terribly difficult or costly to repair. We were able to pick up a new U-post and another turnbuckle for about $26 at Lowe's, and we already had one additional anchor post left from the set of four we'd bought to stake our plum tree in 2020. After finishing up the hell strip on Saturday, Brian drove the new U-post into the spot where the old one had been, and I held the trellis wires in place while he tightened them up. He secured the new anchor into an undisturbed patch of ground a little farther back from where the old one had been and fastened another length of cable, which we still had left over from last time, around the anchor and up to the top of the post. We also had some of the fishing line we'd used for the deer fence left, so fixing that was a simple matter of tying a piece to the new post.

As for the flagstones, Brian wants to hold off on replacing those until the disturbed patch of dirt in the yard has fully settled. By the time that happens, the ground may be frozen, so it's possible it will have to wait until spring. But whenever we're ready, we have a couple of extra flagstones in the back yard, half buried next to the clothesline, that we can unearth and add to the damaged end of the path. And for the third, Brian thinks he can cannibalize one from the rainwater channel he added to the side slope in our backyard last year. If we find that the channel doesn't work so well without it, we can always replace it with one of the leftover tiles from our downstairs bathroom renovation.

Gardeners' Holidays 2025: Late Harvest

With the days growing shorter and temperatures dipping ever lower, Brian and I have spent a lot of the past few weeks getting ready for winter. We've had our boiler tuned up, put our warm comforter on the bed, and gotten our flu and COVID jabs. I've stashed away my light cotton socks and filled up my sock drawer with my warmer wool and acrylic ones. My wearable blanket and pressure cooker space heater have already been pressed into service. And, out in the garden, we've harvested all the tender crops and pretty much everything else.

Sadly, this didn't take very long. Our gardening year appears to be ending not with a bang, but with a whimper, particularly in the squash department. After last year's 42-pound bumper crop, we thought we'd hit on a winning strategy by sticking to the Waltham variety, but this year it fell completely flat. Our four vines produced only six squash, including one so small you can't even see it in the photo. In total, they weighed just 14 pounds, one-third of what we got last year. 

This has me questioning whether our all-Waltham approach is so wise after all. Maybe next year, it would be a good idea to hedge our bets by adding a second variety, such as Burpee's Butterbush. Even if it's less productive overall, it could be something to fall back on if the Waltham is a flop again. Or perhaps we should upgrade to Fedco's new "primo strain," Wig Out Waltham, which promises "the best in yield and consistency" for only marginally higher cost.

However, there is one bright spot in our fall harvest. We currently have a pretty good haul of one crop that we didn't actually plant: black walnuts.

Every fall since we moved to Highland Park, I've noticed the ground in certain areas being strewn with these odd sort of greenish balls, roughly the size of an egg. Sometimes, I'd see one split open and what looked like a blackish nut poking out. However, I vaguely assumed they probably weren't edible because no one seemed to be gathering them. It wasn't until this year, when there were so many of the green balls underfoot that I had to kick them off the sidewalk to keep from slipping on them and tumbling arse-over-teakettle, that I bothered to investigate the matter. After a little research, I learned that the green balls are indeed the fruit of the black walnut tree, and while they aren't themselves edible, the nuts are.

Mind you, it takes a bit of work to get at them. First, you have to strip off the husk—carefully, as it can stain almost anything it touches. Then they need to cure in their shells for a couple of weeks to develop their flavor. And once they're ready to eat, you can't just crack them with an ordinary nutcracker; to get through their extremely hard shells, you have to bang them with a hammer, crush them in a vise, or even back over them with your car. But according to aficionados, their strong, earthy, bittersweet flavor is well worth the effort.

So, over the course of several walks, both in our neighborhood and while visiting friends in Virginia, we gathered up a whole bunch of these little walnut balls. I removed the hulls from a few of them by stepping on them and rolling them under my foot, but Brian threw caution to the wind and tore most of them off with his hands, which, just as the article warned, retained greenish-brown smudges for days afterwards. Then he spread them out in small batches in front of the dehumidifier in the laundry room to dry. It took a few weeks, but eventually we ended up with a quart or so of cured nuts in their shells—about 40 in total.

Then came the really hard part, both literally and figuratively: getting those shells open. Brian cracked the first one by putting it in a vise and tightening it until it snapped (the shell, not the vise, although it felt like kind of a close call which would give first). We each sampled a bit of the nutmeat and found it...odd. It was a bit like a regular walnut, but with a sort of funky, musty flavor underneath. Not bad, exactly, but weird. I kept nibbling at mine, trying to figure out what to compare it to, and the best I could come up with was to say it's a bit like a strong cheese but without the saltiness. Brian tried cracking a few more (taking about ten minutes to get through four nuts) and toasting them to see how that affected their flavor. The toasted nuts smelled absolutely lovely, powerfully nutty and rich, and their flavor was a bit darker, but that odd mustiness was still there. 

These nuts were so different from anything else we've tasted that we weren't quite sure what would be the best way to use them. I did a bit of searching and found several recipes at Southern Living, both savory and sweet: an ice cream, a pasta dish, a sweet bread, a pie, and a salad. To get a better idea of how the walnuts might taste in a sweet dish, I tried sprinkling some cinnamon sugar over one and found that the combination worked quite well: the sugar and spice seemed to soften the funkiness of the walnuts, making it just one element in a more complex blend. Then, for a savory counterpart, I tried one with a bit of our homemade spaghetti salt, and the effect was much the same: the mustiness blended into the background instead of dominating the flavor. So I think that will be the key to enjoying these walnuts: blend them with other strong-tasting ingredients so that their musty, earthy quality will become an interesting element of the flavor rather than the primary note. This recipe for maple-Dijon roasted Brussels sprouts with walnuts might be a good place to start.