Cauliflower Soup

The other day the vegetable market near me had a special on cauliflower. I happen to love cauliflower, so a bought a few heads. My freezer was running low on prepared soups (great for lunches and unexpected guests!), so I decided to have an evening of soup-making. Or rather, about 30 minutes of soup making--this recipe is so easy. I also made a batch of cheese sauce for the freezer using a thicker and cheesier version of the same recipe (see end of recipe for how I did this). It's adapted from Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen.

Cauliflower-Cheese Soup
Serves about 6

1 large cauliflower, cut up
1 carrot, chopped
2 small onions, chopped
3-5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp salt
4 cups water
about 3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 to 2 cups cups extra old cheddar cheese, grated
1 tsp dill
1 tsp caraway seeds, crushed

Boil the cauliflower, carrot, onions, and garlic in 4 cups of salted water until soft. Puree everything in a food processor or blender. Add milk to adjust thickness. Transfer puree back into saucepan. Add cheese, dill and caraway seed. Heat and serve. (Garnish with a bit of fresh dill or caraway and grated cheese.)

Tips: Use the milk to adjust the thickness of the soup. If you have a really big cauliflower head, you may also need more water. This recipe also works well as a straight cauliflower soup without the cheese, however because of the carrot the soup will be a pale orange. To make a cheese sauce instead of soup, use less water or milk and more cheese.

When I made both the other night, I tripled the recipe without the cheese and made a lot of thick puree of the cauliflower 'soup'. Then I added about a cup of extra old cheese (grated) to about two cups of the puree. That give me a jar of cheese sauce for the freezer. I diluted the remainder of the puree with milk. That gave me the cauliflower soup, about half of which I froze like that. To the other half I added extra old cheddar to get a cauliflower-cheese soup.