Cauliflower Cheese Soup

This is one of those dishes where the taste to effort ratio is just ridiculously high.

I made it one night when I was as short on time as I was ideas, and I wasn't expecting much to be honest. Cauliflower is ok, but not one of my favourite veggies.

I try to incorporate Meat Free Mondays in my weekly meal planning - as one of the many small things we can do to reduce our carbon footprints, but also as a cooking challenge. I had made brocolli and cheese soup the week before, so devoid of any other meat-free ideas that aren't macaroni and cheese (my pre-banting go-to meat free dish) I just changed the brocolli to cauliflower and the blue cheese to parmesan and cream cheese.

Obviously, adding chicken stock makes this not a truly vegetarian meal; substitute with veggie stock if necessary.

I was honestly surprised with the results, in the most pleasant way. It's rich, velvety and comforting. It tastes of creaminess with a subtle hint of cheese. Hubby loved it, and even the three-year old cleaned his bowl. Pro-tip: involving a toddler in the cooking process will increase their excitement about the dish by at least 50%.

Low Carb Cauliflower Cheese Soup

Serves 6

Ingredients

• 600g cauliflower, broken into florrets
• 100g cream cheese
• 2 cups chicken stock
• ¹/₂ - 1 cup grated parmesan, to taste
• ¹/₄ tsp ground nutmeg
• ¹/₄ tsp salt
• ¹/₄ tsp white pepper

Method

1. Cook the cauliflower until soft (I usually steam mine, or I microwave it when I'm in a hurry). If boiling, boil it in the chicken stock
2. In a blender (with somewhere for steam to escape), or with a stick blender, process the cauliflower, stock, cream cheese and ¹/₂ cup parmesan until smooth
3. Taste, and add seasoning and more parmesan to taste. The nutmeg really does compliment the cauliflower so try not to skip it