A post-Christmas soup

We were given a lot of cheese just before Christmas. When I say a lot, I mean really an awful lot. Almost more than was possible for just the two of us to eat.

It included Grana Padana, Brie, Feta and Gorgonzola.

So I have discovered many things to make with cheese, some expected (cheesy biscuits, oh so good, and even easier if you roll it into a big sausage, roll that sausage in sesame seeds and then keep it in the fridge till you’re ready to bake the slices for scrummy cheesy nibbles and a wee sherry) and some not so expected, such as this cauliflower and cheese soup. It’s thick and creamy, and presumably not entirely bad for you with all that cauliflower in it. However, it’s rich and very blue cheesy and probably should only be served in wee teeny bowls or cups.

Mum has lots of lovely crockery, inherited from here and there. One of my favourites is a set of twelve cups and saucers. They are delicate porcelain espresso cups and saucers – in pure white with a gold rim. The saucers are slightly unusual in that they have no ‘dimple’ for the cups to sit in. And they have always been known as the Turtle Soup Cups. They came from my father’s family in Germany, and we’d only ever used them as coffee cups occasionally when we had so many guests we needed to bring them into play. But Mum had made a deliciously rich cream of veg soup on Christmas Eve and we used them as teeny wee soup cups. I kinda wished we had them today for the Cauliflower and Gorgonzola Soup I made – it really needed a small delicate serving, instead of the muckle soup bowl I used.

Cauliflower and blue cheese soup

• 1 onion
• a glug of veg oil or butter
• a TBsp of plain flour
• 1 veg stock cube
• 1/2 pint milk
• 1 medium cauliflower
• 120g blue cheese (I used Gorgonzola)

1. Finely chop the onion
2. Chop the cauliflower
3. Heat the oil in a pan over a low heat
4. Add the onion, and heat, stirring from time to time, till it goes translucent
5. Add the flour and stir quickly
6. Then gradually add the milk and a pint or so of water – d0 this gradually, and stir as you do it. You want to make sure you incorporate all the flour, but don’t get any lumps.
7. Add the stock cube and the chopped up cauliflower, stir and bring to the boil
8. Simmer gently for about 20 mins
9. Add the blue cheese and then zizz it with a zizzer (or liquidise it by whatever means you have)
10. Add a teaspoonful of Dijon mustard if you think it needs it
11. Serve with a sprinkle of chopped parsley if you have any around, or a wee pinch of cayenne pepper or something else which will give this kinda creamy white soup some colourful life.

Tags: blue cheese, cauliflower, cheese, leftovers, recipes, soup, vegetarian