Cauliflower Cheese Soup

After the excesses of Christmas and New Year feasting,  I really want to make and eat meals which are less rich.  So why don’t you, I hear you say?  Because the fridge is still full of Christmas and New Year food and as I cannot bring myself to waste food, we are going to have to eat it all up!

This compulsion is generally kept under control by careful menu planning to ensure that there is only what is needed in the fridge and cupboards.  However, over the holiday season all this goes out the window and when I open the fridge I am staring at various half eaten packs of cheese, vacuum packed chestnuts and boxes of left over meats and vegetables which demand to be re-purposed into delicious thrifty meals.  Unfortunately, they don’t tend to be low fat or low sugar type foods so I’m hoping I will have cleared the lot by the end of the coming weekend and I can eat in a more healthy way once more!

I started to make in roads into the New Year leftovers today, there was a litre box full of cauliflower cheese congealed in a way that did not invite reheating and eating in it’s original form and so it became:

Cauliflower Cheese Soup 

Serves 4

2 medium onions, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
1 teaspoon of sunflower oil
Approx 1 litre of leftover cauliflower in cheese sauce
1 litre vegetable stock
A little milk as required
salt and freshly ground pepper
bunch of flat leaved parsley, finely chopped

1. Heat the sunflower oil in a large pan, add the chopped onions and celery and cook on a medium heat until the onion is soft and transparent and the celery has started to soften.
2. Add the stock and simmer gently for 10 minutes until the celery is soft.
3. Add the cauliflower in cheese sauce and cook for a further 10 minutes.
4. Take the pan off the heat and leave to cool for about 20 minutes.
5. Puree the soup with a stick blender or in a liquidiser, adding some milk if the mixture becomes too thick.
6. Season to taste and garnish with parsley.
7. Serve with crusty bread (I used Morrison’s Cranberry, Walnut and Stilton bread – a gift from my sister-in-law)

It seems that others also suffer from the compulsion eat up everything left in the fridge, as the theme for January’s ‘No Croutons Required’ is to come up with a creative vegetarian soup or salad making use of your leftovers.

No Croutons Required is a blogger challenge alternately hosted by Lisa at Lisa’s Kitchen and Jac at Tinned Tomatoes, this month Lisa is hosting.

Helen at Fuss Free Flavours also suggested I add it to the new ‘Credit Crunch Munch’ a linky devoted to money saving recipes.  Credit Crunch Munch is replacing Frugal Food Fridays and is hosted alternately  by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla at Fab Food for all

More re-purposed food coming soon…