Grandma’s Cauliflower Soup

This isn’t a soup I grew up with but rather one Grandma has added to her arsenal of killer recipes in recent years. My father loves soups and occasionally even goes on a soup diet. Mind you, I suspect this has nothing to do with trying to lose weight and everything to do with forcing my mum to keep him in his favourite soups for a couple of weeks.

We ate this soup a few weekends ago for lunch, with Miss1 gnawing on one of the cheese fingers. Of course, once the concept of just eating the cheddar cheese fingers was introduced to the table it quickly caught on with the kids.

It turned out this was great news because the adults at the table loved this soup, so the small kiddy helpings meant Grandma & Grandad and Tracey & I could have it for dinner the following night – just had to make some more cheese fingers.

This soup was so easy to make, which a little bit of stirring or pot watching required but little else, we enjoyed a rather nice cup of tea and chat while we cooked.

FOR THE SOUP

You will need:

20g butter

1 onion, chopped

1 stick of celery, chopped

1 potato, chopped

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

750g cauliflower, chopped

4 cups chicken stock

250g cream

salt & pepper, to taste

FOR THE FINGERS

You will need:

4 slices bread

20g butter

1 clove crushed garlic

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

STEP ONE: Melt butter (20g) and cook onion for a couple of minutes to soften. Add celery, potato and nutmeg and cook, stirring, for another couple of minutes.

STEP TWO: Add the cauliflower and stock, bringing to boil while stirring before reducing heat and simmering for 20 minutes.

STEP THREE: Using a food processor, blend until smooth (do it batches). Return to the saucepan.

STEP FOUR: Add cream and season before heating the soup up again. Do not boil.

STEP FIVE: Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

STEP SIX: Cut the crusts of the slices of bread. Combine melted butter and garlic then brush both sides of bread.

STEP SEVEN: Cut each buttered slice into four ‘fingers’ and lay on a baking tray. Bake for 10 minutes.

STEP EIGHT: Add cheddar cheese to top of ‘fingers’ and bake for a further 10 minutes.

STEP NINE: Serve soup, presenting two cheesy ‘fingers’ in each bowl and the rest in the center of the table for dipping.

When not typing away over here and checking his stats every two minutes Bruce Devereaux hangs out at his ‘BIG FAMILY little income’  Facebook Page.

 ’raising a family on little more than laughs’