Awesome Wintery Cruciferous Soup

Winter is the perfect time to whip a batch of soup that "sticks to the ribs" and is oh, so tasty.  The recipe to follow was a big hit with my family and I've stopped telling them "oh and by the way it's healthy too" as that kind of ruins it for them. Here is a recipe I threw together yesterday.





Ingredients
1 head of cauliflower cut into florets
1 quart of vegetable stock
1 cup of carrot juice
4-5 ribs of celery chopped
1/2 cup of chopped onion
1 cup of chopped carrots
1 cup of raw cashews
water
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp crushed pepper flakes
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 cup nutritional yeast (optional)

Directions
Cover the cashews in water and soak overnight.
Saute the vegetables in a stock pot for 5 minutes. Pour the the stock and carrot juice into the pot and bring to a boil.  Add the thyme and simmer for 10 - 15 minutes.
While the soup mixture is simmering drain the water from the cashews and rinse them a few times.  Put them into a blender and enough water to cover by about an inch.  Blend well.  It will take about 2-3 minutes in a normal house blender.  This should yield about 2 cups of cream. Add the cream to the soup pot and continue to simmer for another 5 minutes.
Pull out a few cups of the mixture and blend with an immersion blender and return to the pot.  Do this another time to add some "heft" to the soup.
Enjoy!