Broccoli-Cheese Soup

Good afternoon, everyone! I’m so sorry for my recent absence. It’s been extremely busy for us in the Champagne household. I’ve been helping family move, reading through submissions, dealing with teacher meetings, school concerts, shopping trips, colds, the list could go on.

Luckily, all of the colds and flus have forced me to practice making soup! I believe I’ve perfected the Broccoli-Cheese. This recipe requires a strong blender; I’ve got a Viamix.

These measurements all depend on how much soup you wish to make. I have a family of 6, so I often make two full batches, and we always have leftovers.

The ingredients:

– 1 head of broccoli
– 2 cups chunked cheese (I use marbled cheddar)
– 1 tsp powdered chicken bouillon base
– Sprinkle of seasoning salt and pepper (to taste)
– 2 cups milk
– 1 cup water
(The milk and water portions depend on how thick or watery you want your soup, in addition to what can fit in your blender)

Directions:

1. Chop broccoli and put in steamer.

2. Chop cheese into chunks (whichever manageable size is recommended for your blender).

3. Add cheese chunks and spices to blender.
4. Remove broccoli from steamer (once softened) and put it in blender.

5. Add milk and water to blender.

6. Blend at full power. With the Vitamix blender, leave it running for 7 minutes. The Vitamix blender heats the soup for you, so once the time is up, your soup will be hot enough to pour directly into bowls. If your blender doesn’t do this, then blend to your preferred consistency and heat in a pot on the stove.

7. Serve. I like to grate some extra cheese and put it on top of the soup.

This soup is a hit with our family. The kids like to put Saltine crackers in it (like they do tomato soup). If you have no Saltines, the goldfish crackers work well, also.

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you all have a lovely holiday season! Happy Tuesday!

 

Tomato Soup – Attempt #2

Good evening blog readers! Today I’m writing about my second attempt at tomato soup. It was better than the last one… but not by much. My husband says he loved it, but I think he’s just flattering me.

I found the recipe on Pinterest, but it is a different one than the last one I used.

This is the recipe I followed:

– 7 vine tomatoes
– 2-3 cloves of garlic
– 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
– Pinch of salt (to taste)
– Pinch of pepper (to taste)
– Chicken broth (recipe called for 2 cups, but I accidentally put in the whole container… which was about 4 cups)
– 1 cup cream
– 1 can tomato paste (I added this because I had to compensate for putting in too much broth)

Directions:

1. Mince garlic and put in saucepan with olive oil, salt, and pepper on low heat.

2. Chop tomatoes (I make sure to take out the stem area – as pictured below) and add it to the garlic and olive oil (be sure to retain the tomato juices). *Note: I made the mistake of putting the tomatoes into their own pot as I misunderstood the directions on the blog I followed. I ended up adding the garlic mixture on top of the tomatoes – which is probably why it ended up still tasting a lot like garlic.

3. Let the tomatoes, garlic, and olive oil mixture simmer on medium for 15 minutes.

4. Add in chicken broth.

5. Let it cool for a few minutes before you put everything in the blender.

6. Blend until smooth.

7. Return to stove and add cream.

8. At this point, we added in the tomato paste and I used the whisk to stir it in.

9. Add salt, pepper, or any other flavours of your choice.

10. Eat it on its own or enjoy with a grilled cheese!

Enjoy and thank you for reading!

Tomato Soup Disaster

Last night I thought I would be clever and make a *delicious* tomato soup. From scratch. We have a garden in our backyard, in which we have an enormous tomato plant. As such, we had a good seven tomatoes sitting on our kitchen counter waiting to be consumed. So I went on Pinterest and searched through tomato soup recipes for the Vitamix. I found several that had the same ingredients:

-Handfull of chopped tomatoes
-3 Cloves of garlic
-Handful of basil leaves
-Spices (salt, pepper, and others to taste)
Etc.

So I thought I would give it a try. I chopped my tomatoes, peeled my garlic, and gathered my spices. I put them all in the Vitamix and gave them a whirl until it was smooth.

Well, it didn’t turn out as I had expected. It tasted very strongly of garlic and it was thick and frothy. I tried adding water and putting it on the stove to simmer, but then it was, in essence, tomato-garlic-water.

In desperation, I asked my husband what he thought I should do and he suggested adding some Campbell’s Tomato soup. I must repeat, I was desperate. It was late, we were hungry, the kids were cranky, and Hubby was already nearly done cooking the grilled cheese sandwiches for accompaniment… I had to get it done quickly.

It was for that reason that I quickly dumped a can into the mixture and stirred it in with a whisk, hoping beyond hope that we could all stomach what I’d made.

The result, I am happy to say, was actually palatable. It still had a strong garlic taste, but it was far more manageable than my original mixture. It was also excellent to dip a grilled cheese into.

For all of your sakes – and your sanity – please do not try to replicate my recipe; if I had the choice, I would not make it the same way again. In the future I may try another version, but for now I’m all tomato-souped out.

Thank you for reading, and farewell for now!