I had a rather fine cauliflower sat in my fridge for a while and I’ve been tempted by various recipe ideas, should I make a nice potato and cauliflower curry, how about a simple cauliflower cheese, maybe make some lightly pickled cauliflower reminiscent of a brightly coloured piccalilli, or stir fry with garlic and sesame seeds to enjoy with some Thai rice.   And then I noticed the cheese and I knew what was called for. 

A tiny piece of cheddar, the end of some Parmesan which was too hard to grate and a small piece of Stilton.  This was going to be interesting. 

So I fried some onions for flavour, added some potatoes, the amount will vary depending on how thick you like your soup, I like mine to stick to my ribs, so quite a lot.  If anybody has noticed I don’t put too many details of weights and measures in my savoury recipes, I think savoury cooking is about what you have in the cupboard, what your taste buds like and not what you think you should put in.   And then added that cauliflower without any green bits, two stocks cubes,  (mine were chicken, but we are putting this on the meatless monday because they could so easily have been vegetable) plenty of water and about half a pint of milk.  And not forgetting to add the hard crusts of the Parmesan, they will impart flavour and you will be able to rescue some of the cheese from the rind.  And then simmer until everything is softly cooked.

See how the cheese goes soggy, you can cut those bits off.  Then added all of the cheese and whizzed with my trusty hand blender.

And finished with a sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper and a scattering of just harvested from the plastic tub on the kitchen windowsill, cress.   It was a thing of hot cheesy beauty, the cauliflower and potatoes being the perfect foils to allow the cheesy flavours to come through.