Orange Cauliflower and Butternut Squash Soup

One of my most favorite blogs to read is Cannelle et Vanille.  The pictures are so inspiring and so are the unusual flavor combinations.  As someone who can eat wheat products, I don't make a lot of the gluten-free recipes on the site even though they sound amazing.  I did come across this Orange Cauliflower and Butternut Squash Soup recipe, posted on another site where she did an interview, and I was intrigued.  I didn't think I would ever see orange cauliflower, but one appeared to me at the market in a bin full of its white friends.  (Later, at the other market I go to, I saw a giant bright purple one too!  What a day.)  So I got it and made this soup a few days later.

Some things about the recipe are a little odd, so you kind of have to go with your instincts.  There are no measurements given for the cauliflower or butternut squash besides "one" and maybe a loose descriptor like "small" or "large," yet the recipe calls for 2 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of black pepper.  As I put the pepper in the pot I thought to myself, hmm, this seems like a lot of pepper.  Then I dumped it in.  Then I thought, "maybe I'll use a little less salt and add more later on."  So I used 1 tsp of salt.  I did add more later, but I strongly doubt it came out to a full teaspoon.  The black pepper ended up providing a noticeable kick, in a very good way.  The soup seemed fairly basic from the recipe, so I used a bouillon cube with herbs instead of just a regular one.

The recipe made about 2.5 quarts, a little more than the other soup recipes I have been making.  I suspect this may have been in part because of the giant head of cauliflower I used.  You could definitely make this with white cauliflower, but the orange complements the color of the butternut squash, so you won't get quite as orange a soup.  We ate these with Panetini crackers/toasts left over from the summer bruschetta, but the recipe recommends parmesan and herb crackers which sound delicious as well.  This was Ken's favorite soup so far, so I suspect I will be making more of it later this winter.