Curried Cauliflower Soup

Happy Mothers Day! And happy Souper Sunday! This picture really does this soup no justice. It's actually quite a flavourful, delicious soup. When my husband came in, he had wondered if it was Mulligatawny, so if you like that, I think you'll like this. This recipe is adapted from 'Eat, Shrink and Be Merry' by Janet and Greta Podleski. (called Melancauli Baby in the book) Their cookbooks are my favorite and most used. I wish I got the Food Network so that I could watch their show, my mom says it's very good. But, we don't subscribe to cable or satellite (I know, we're one of the few families using rabbit ears these days), we really don't watch a lot of TV. If we could pick just 3 or 4 special channels that we like and still get the 3 we get with the rabbit ears we'd be just fine. Well we're still just fine anyway. But now I've completely got off track.
About the soup...it is a nice light way of making a rich soup. I think you could add some meat to it (maybe some chopped chicken or turkey) to round it out, but it still stands great as a vegatarian meal. I didn't have leeks on hand so I used 2 small onions instead. I also crushed 3 cloves of garlic in, rather than mincing 2 tsp. I'm really no good for measuring things like garlic and other vegatables, I just give it my best estimated guess. So the cauliflower and sweet potato I didn't measure out either, I just chopped up one cauliflower head and a large sweet potato and added them in. Should be about right though.

1 tbsp butter or olive oil (I used margarine with olive oil in it)
2 cups thinly sliced leeks (about 2 large)
2 tsp minced garlic
4 cups small cauliflower florets
1 1/2 cups peeled, cubed sweet potato
1 1/2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp ground cumin
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth (I used veg.)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 cup cooked brown and wild rice blend (I used Uncle Ben's rice and herb blend, which was a white and wild rice blend mix)
1 cup evaporated 2% milk (I had fat-free on hand, so that went in instead)
1/2 cup packed shredded light Swiss cheese

Heat butter in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the leeks and garlic. Cook until the leeks begin to soften. Stir in the sweet potato, cauliflower, curry and cumin. Mix everything well together and let cook for 1 minute. Add broth, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 15 minutes, until vegetables are tender. (I actually got busy doing something else, so my simmered for over half an hour). Transfer half the soup to a blender and puree until smooth. (I've had poor success with blending 1/2 soup before, so what I now do is transfer to a mixing bowl and use my hand blender to puree). Return pureed soup to the soup pot with the remaining soup and mix well. Stir in cooked rice, milk, and Swiss cheese. Heat soup for 1 more minute and serve hot.

This soup is good the first day and even better the next. It will be my lunch soup for the next week.