Copy Cat Zupa's Wisconsin Cauliflower Soup

I love Zupas.  Love love love them.  Honestly I could probably eat their soup every day (if I was rich and could afford to eat out every day).  I don't normally put much trust in copy cat recipes, but I have been craving good soup for a while now so I decided to give this recipe a shot.

Click here for the original recipe

I have a tendency to alter recipes as I go.  Since I was reviewing this recipe I tried to stick to the recipe as closely as possible, but some changes were still made.  First I started out with 3 Tb. of butter instead of two.  I felt like two was going to disappear really quickly when I added the onions.  When I added my diced onions to the pan, I knew that 3 Tb. was much better.

The part of the recipe that I had an issue with was the adding flour and salt.  The original recipe says to let this cook for two minutes.  1/4 cup of flour added to 3 Tb. of butter and onions is sucked up really quickly.  If you wanted to make a thinner roux (which I'm assuming the recipe was trying to achieve at this point) you would only add a tablespoon or so of flour before adding more liquids.  So if you wanted to more closely follow the recipe I would suggest flour then liquid and repeat until you're out of flour.  I added all of the flour, whisked it around and then added some of my milk.  

I did straight milk instead of water because I wanted my soup to be creamy and thick.  After adding all of the liquids, I added the cauliflower as directed.  I let the cauliflower reach a boil and then turned it down.  I simmered mine for closer to fifteen minutes.  I wanted it to be pretty soft when I threw it in my food processor.  

After processing the soup (I did mine in two batches, but my food processor is pretty large), I added it all back to the pan.  At this point I added a lot more salt, some pepper, the mustard, and my cheeses (I did 1 1/2 of pepper jack and 1/2 cup of extra sharp cheddar to start).  After letting it cook for a minute (so yeah I ignored that part of the recipe too) I added more salt and another 1/2 cup of extra sharp cheddar.

The end result was a tasty soup.  Was it as good as Zupas?  Not even close.  But it was a good homemade soup.  Personally I would have added another cup of cheese, but my family isn't as cheese happy as me.  I added some to my bowl though and it was quite tasty.  Before I try this again, I might visit Zupas and try to figure out what flavors I'm missing.  Like I said, this is a good cauliflower soup and it's pretty simple to make.  But if you're expecting it to taste like Zupa's cauliflower soup, I think you'll be disappointed.  

-KP