When we go grocery shopping, we always go with a budget and a list which means we generally have the week's meals planned out. Sometimes, things that weren't on the list sneak into the cart. This time I grabbed a cauliflower with no ideas for it... if nothing else, I knew it'd get thrown into the roasted veggie mixes (we eat baked chicken and roasted veggies once or twice a week for dinner).
I don't know why, but I decided I wanted cream soup, and I've never actually made a cauliflower soup, so it seemed like the thing to do. The cheese was a last minute idea since I remembered we had them in the fridge, and I'm glad I did! This soup came out great... I really liked it.
I can't even tell you why, but I've had Billy Joel running through my brain... which then, instantly makes me think of the Gimmes. So Me First and the Gimme Gimmes doing "Only The Good Die Young" (because they didn't eat their cauliflower). -jen
6 tablespoons butter + 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, separated
1 large onion, diced (about 2 cups)
3 medium carrots, diced (about 1.5 cups)
2 celery stalks, diced (about 1 cup)
1 poblano or green pepper, seeded and diced (about 1 cup)
1 medium head cauliflower, roughly chopped
3-4 large garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
6 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup flour
2 cups heavy cream
1.5 cups shredded Asiago cheese
1 cup shredded Cheddar or Cojack cheese
2 teaspoons sherry
several dashes Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste
a few dashes of cayenne pepper or Sriracha sauce (optional)
In a large stockpot, saute onion, carrots, celery and pepper in 6 tablespoons of butter over a medium-high heat until vegetables are softened, 5-7 minutes. Stir in cauliflower, garlic, thyme, marjoram and crushed red pepper flakes. Cook an additional 2-3 minutes. Add chicken broth and bring to a boil, then simmer until cauliflower is tender, about 10 minutes. (At this point, I like to use a stick blender or regular blender to blend about 2/3 of the soup, smoothing it out a little but I like to leave a few chunks. You can leave everything whole, or blend the whole thing, whatever you prefer!)
Meanwhile, in a small sauce pan, melt remaining 1 stick of butter. Stir in flour and cook over a medium heat for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, to make a roux. Remove from heat. When the cauliflower in the broth is tender (and blended, if you're blending any), add the roux and the heavy cream. Bring back to a boil, then simmer, stirring frequently until thickened, about 5 minutes. Add the cheese, one handful at a time, stir until completely melted before adding next handful. Add sherry, Worcestershire, salt and pepper to taste, and cayenne or Sriracha, if desired.
I garnished mine with some of the shredded cojack and some diced scallions I had in the fridge.
We've been making soup about once a week. Throughout the week, we often have roasted vegetables several times and will often make a salad of some sort. So when we're preparing vegetables, we've taken to saving things like the ends of carrots and onions, the stems of herbs, all of our vegetable "scraps", and storing them in a Ziploc bag in the freezer. Then Justin makes stock out of them and we make a delicious vegetable soup. Usually they're broth-based soups, but we felt like going with a cream style this week, packed full of vegetables (and bacon, which is totally optional). Came out so rich and delicious! We make large batches at a time so that we have lunches for work. You can cut the recipe in half if you're not looking for quite so much.
The awesome thing about soups like this, is that you can customize the vegetables to whatever you like. Don't like mushrooms? Axe 'em and add cauliflower instead. Don't like bell peppers? Axe 'em and add potato instead. I think most of our soups end up created just using whatever we have leftover in the fridge.
To go with our soup, for no particular reason except to rock, is The Marked Men doing "All In Your Head". -jen
CREAM OF VEGETABLE SOUP Prep Time: 20 minutes (35 if using bacon) Cook Time: 20 minutes Difficulty: Easy Makes: about 14 cups
5 tablespoons butter (6 tbsp if not using bacon fat)
3 tablespoons olive oil (4 tbsp if not using bacon fat)
2 cups crimini or button mushrooms, diced fine
2 cups broccoli florets (about 1 medium crown)
1.5 cups yellow onion, diced fine (about 1 medium onion)
1.5 cups carrots, diced fine (about 3 medium carrots)
1 cup celery, diced fine (about 3 large stalks)
1/2 cup red bell pepper, diced fine (about 1/2 medium pepper)
1/2 cup poblano pepper, diced fine (about 1 medium poblano)
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary, chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
2/3 cup flour
6 cups chicken broth
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
salt, to taste (bacon adds a lot of salt on its own, as do most chicken stocks, so taste your soup before adding salt!)
Place diced bacon into a cold stock pot. Turn heat to medium-high, and cook until crisped, about 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Using a slotted spoon, spoon out the crisped bacon and drain over paper towels. Set aside. Drain all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat from the stock pot.
Add olive oil and butter to stock pot (still over medium-high heat). Add all vegetables and saute until tender, 10-12 minutes. Add the rosemary, thyme and marjoram to the vegetables and cook 1 more minute. Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables and stir until flour absorbs oil and is no longer white. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Whisk in the stock and turn the heat to high. Whisk continuously until soup begins to thicken a little. Once it begins to thicken, add heavy cream, white pepper, black pepper and the crisped bacon. Stir continuously until soup comes to a boil, then remove from heat. Add salt to taste and serve.
This is basically a "we're broke and gotta do something with leftovers" soup that came out fantastic! Very rich, creamy soup and surprisingly, neither the asparagus nor the broccoli are overwhelming. As Justin just said, it's a stick-to-your-ribs soup. Now, I actually made this soup with some of Justin's homemade pork broth which gave it this great, smokey, ham or bacon flavour. However, since I know most people don't have pork broth hanging around in their freezer, I'm going to post the recipe with chicken broth, which is perfectly acceptable.
I'm going to be honest here with the music - I was in a retro mood and listening to my Rosemary Clooney Pandora station (even my garnish got retro!), but this is a rock'n'roll blog and I just can't bring myself to post one of her songs. So I'm going with a song that came across my ears yesterday that I hadn't heard in years! T.S.O.L.'s "Black Magic"! I remember loving this song the first time I heard it and then playing it over, and over, and over, and then over again! Hard to find a video of this song at all! -jen
CREAM OF ASPARAGUS & BROCCOLI SOUP Time: 45-60 minutes total Serves: 6-8 Difficulty: Easy
1.5 pounds of asparagus
1 pound of broccoli
olive oil
salt and pepper
10 tablespoons butter
2 medium onions, chopped
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
2/3 cup flour
5 cups chicken broth
3 cups milk
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
1/8-1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (depending on taste)
2 tablespoons dry sherry
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Remove woody ends of asparagus and discard; chop the asparagus into 2" pieces. Chop broccoli into about 2" pieces, including the stems. Lay out on a baking sheet and drizzle generously with olive oil, then toss to coat all vegetables. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast for 30 minutes. Set aside.
Meanwhile, heat butter in stock pot over medium-high heat and saute onions until soft and transluscent, 5-10 minutes. Add minced garlic and cook an additional 3 minutes. Add flour and stir until combined, cook another 5 minutes. Whisk in chicken broth and milk until all clumps have disappeared and sauce begins to thicken. Add roasted asparagus and broccoli, thyme, marjoram, rosemary, tarragon, and cayenne pepper. Taste soup to see if it needs additional salt and pepper. Using an immersion blender, blend until smooth. (If you don't have an immersion blender, you can use a regular blender or food processor, but do it in batches and be careful because the soup is hot!) Stir in sherry and serve.
