Cheesy Cauliflower Soup

I feel like I'm ALWAYS talking about my Bountiful Basket. Some of you may be wondering exactly what this "bountiful basket" is. First of all, it has nothing to do with the city of Bountiful. They are all over the country, I believe. Type in Bountiful Basket in google and go to the website and find out if your city has one. The story with why I'm always writing about it goes like this...you never know what you are going to get. It is a flat-rate each week and you get half fruit and half veggies. Some veggies you may like, others...not so much. Well, what do you do when you get a whole head of cauliflower...and NO ONE in your family likes cauliflower? Well, I happened to find a soup recipe that actually uses a whole cauliflower! It was delicious and my family loved it and ate the cauliflower up like there were no veggies in it. Actually, they didn't know there were veggies because they were pureed. All they knew was that it had a nice cheesy taste and they were happy.

Cheesy Cauliflower Soup

2 T butter

1/2 yellow onion, coarsely chopped

1/4 C whole wheat flour

1 - 1 1/2 tsp. salt

2 C milk

1 1/2 C water

2 C chicken broth

1 head cauliflower cut into bite-size pieces (approx. an inch)

1 tsp. whole grain Dijon mustard

1 1/2 C shred cheddar cheese

1 C Pepper Jack cheese, shredded

Melt butter over medium heat and add onion. Cook until onion is transparent. Add whole wheat flour and stir until evenly distributed.  Add salt, milk, water and chicken broth and stir so whole wheat is not clumped at all. Add cauliflower and bring mixture to a boil. Cover and let simmer for about 15 minutes. Remove approx. 1/4 of mixture and puree in blender. Repeat with rest of soup...blending only a fourth at a time. Pour pureed soup back into a very large saucepan, stir in soup and whole grain mustard. Serve warm with whole wheat bread.

Note: I recently made this again and my mom suggested adding chopped bacon in at the end...you can do it as you serve the soup. The bacon was a superb addition to the soup and was well-received by all who tried it. My mom stated that this is one of her all-time favorite soups...which made me feel pretty great!