50. Zlamushka's Vegetable Cream Soup

I signed up immediately when I read about Taste & Create, the food blogging event hosted monthly by Nicole of For the Love of Food. It sounded like so much fun.

What a brilliant idea! A food blogger is paired randomly by Nicole with another food blogger. Each reads the other's blog, makes a recipe from it, then writes a post.

I blog from Vancouver, Canada and my partner is Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen from Malmo, Sweden. Her url is Burnt Mouth! She is a self-confessed chiliaddict! This gal likes her food oh so spicy.

I have been enjoying myself reading her blog. I am so impressed. Zlamushka’s Spicy Kitchen is a well-written blog, with wonderful, healthy recipes and excellent photography. Z is a lively, talented, popular young woman. She speaks three languages, has lived in China and speaks and reads Chinese.

My recipes are about Cantonese home-cooking and my cooking is bland in comparison. I like spicy food but don’t eat much of it. As I started blogging this January, I don't have many recipes and a number of them are recipes for meat. I thought Z was a vegan and was worried that she wouldn’t have much choice from my blog whereas she gave me a lot of options because, even though there are spicy recipes, there are also lots of baking and Slovak recipes.

My worries proved unfounded. It turns out that Z cooks Chinese food a lot and wanted to try some of my recipes. We have been emailing each other and have been discussing cooking, books, movies. I have been introduced to a new author, Haruki Murakami - Z's favourite author.

I love soups and am using Z's recipe for Zucchini Cream Soup as a guide to make Cauliflower Cream Soup. Her soup has been rated 5 Stars and quite rightly so.

There is no cream in her cream soup. It is a vegan dish and the creaminess comes from the pureed vegetables. There are three main ingredients. I used onions, carrots and cauliflower.This delicious soup is simple and easy to make and was ready in about 5 minutes courtesy of my pressure cooker. I didn't put in the tablespoon of curry powder Z recommended. A whole tablespoon in a pot of soup for 4 people! That's probably double the amount of heat I could tolerate.

Instead, in honour of Zlamushka, I decided to decorate the soup by sprinkling smoked Spanish paprika - pimenton picante, paprika with the most intense heat - to form the letter Z. The time I saved from cooking the soup was spent on garnish. I wanted to write a Z with a flourish like the sign of Zorro but the cardboard and the curves proved difficult to cut so I had to use a plain Z. I should have practiced with a small bowl of soup first, instead I sieved the paprika over the template and dropped too much onto the thick soup. The results are not exactly as I anticipated.

Z's soup is very healthy and so tasty and thick that it is ideal for those dreary, rainy, fall or winter days in Vancouver. Thicken it more and you have a great dip for chips. Thin it down, make it with summer vegetables and it will be perfect, served hot or cold on lovely summer days.

What recipe did my partner choose from my blog? Ants Climbing Up a Tree! She hardly ever eats meat but she bought ground beef to make the dish! Her version is the authentic one since she cooked it hot! hot! hot! as they do in Szechuan!