Broccoli Cheese Soup: Now With Potato and Bacon!

A week or so ago, I was catching up on my Pioneer Woman episodes off of my DVR. In one of the episodes Ree made Broccoli Cheese soup. It looked so delicous! I was very excited to make this, as I have finally gotten the husband to eat soup, which he always claimed to dislike. The White Bean and Collard Green soup I made was the first one he really enjoyed.

Anyway, I decided to scale Ree's soup down, mainly because I did not want to buy as much milk/half and half as the recipe called for. I was also not toally certain that my pot would be big enough for the whole recipe (it would have been fine.) Turns out that this soup is so yummy that I wish I had made a whole batch so I had more to freeze for later. Oh well.

I also made some changes in the form of additions to the soup. The husband and I love bacon, and it goes so well with broccoli and cheese. I also like to add potatoes to soup to make them a little more hearty. Thirdly, I used only whole milk because I was on a budget and it was cheaper to buy three cups of milk than to buy milk and half and half. Aside from that, the recipe is the same.

Before I give you the recipe, here is a shot of my lovely soup in my homemade bread bowl:

Ingredients

Approximately 3 strips of bacon*

1/2 and onion, diced

3-4 Tbsp Butter

Almost 1/3 cup flour

3 Cups Whole Milk

2 Heads Broccoli florets, chopped

2 Potatoes, cubed**

1 1/2 Cups Sharp Cheddar Cheese

Salt and Pepper to taste

In a large pot (I used a 7 quart stock pot) cook bacon over medium heat until crisp. Place on paper towels to drain.

Add the butter, melt, then add the onions.

Cook for 3-4 minutes, or until translucent.

Sprinkle the flour over the pot and stir. Cook for at least one more minute until thickened.

Pour in the milk and stir to combine.

Add in potatoes and broccoli, stir.

Turn stove to low, cover, and simmer for 20-30 minutes*** or until vegetables are tender

In the last 10 minutes or so, add the bacon back to the pot

Add cheese and stir until melted. Taste and add salt and pepper.

Ladle into bowls or hollowed out rolls.

*I bought bacon ends from Albertson's so I cannot give an exact amount of bacon

**I used red potatoes and they were only ok. I would suggest white potatoes

***My potatoes took forever to cook (one of the reasons I would not use them again,) just keep checking your vegetables for doneness

Albertson's had this bread called "Mini Boules" looks about what restaurants use for bread bowls so I bought them. they were very tasty, but I think it made it too much food. I might use Kaiser rolls next time so as not to have any waste.

I will leave you with a close up of this delicious soup and hope you will all make it in the near future!

Michael Symon's Collard Greens and White Bean Soup (Sort of)

Yes, I know in my last post I said I was hoping to blog more. I'm a bad blogger, sorry :( It has been more than five months since I last wrote a post. Before I get to the recipe I guess so updates are in order.

First, Santa Cruz is no longer my destination for completing my degree. I know, it sounded so great. Eventually I realized I really did not want to move 600 miles away from my friends and family. I have since applied to Cal State Northridge and expect to start in the fall.

Second, I still need to move. Some of this issues that I did not go into last time are no longer a problem, but living here is still stressful and aggravating. We are hoping to move with some friends who are in a similar situation and also need to move.

Third, I have updated my deviantART page and am now a semi-active member of that community again. I would hope that you all would take a look at my art. Some is good, some is eh, and some I don't know what I was thinking ;)

 

Now for the recipe. Have any of you been watching ABC's The Chew? It is the only daytime talkshow that I watch and I love it so much! For those of you who have yet to see it, the show has five hosts: Iron Chefs Michael Symon and Mario Batali, Clinton Kelly from TLC's What Not to Wear, Top Chef fan favorite Carla Hall, and Daphne Oz, daughter of Dr. Oz. Together they talk about what is going on in the food world, offer up so fashion and healthy living tips, and cooks amazing food! Check it out Monday through Friday at 12pm Pacific time.

The most recent recipe that I made from The Chew is Michael Symon's Collard Greens and White Bean Soup. Now, Brandon doesn't like collard greens so instead I used wild arugula. Then I decided it could use a few more vegetables so I added heirloom carrots and white potatoes. The original recipe calls for 12 cups of chicken stock. Originally the soup was suposed to be simmering for an hour to cook the dry beans. I used only canned beans and the potaotes didn't take that long so I only used 10 cups of stock. I also love sage so I threw some of that in the simmering soup as well. Oh, and I added cayenne pepper and chili powder. I think it is offically MY soup recipe and not HIS soup recipe at this point. The recipe that follows is my recipe, please check out thechew.com for Michael Symon's recipe.

 

Sausage and Arugula Soup

Ingredients:

1/4 cup Olive oil

1 1/2 yellow onions, diced finely

3/4 pound sausage (any kind, but I used Argentinian) casings removed and crumbled

1 teaspoon Red Pepper flakes

3 large heirloom carrots (I used 1 yellow, 1 purple, and 1 light orange)

4 large white potaotes

10 cups low sodium chicken broth

1 small bunch of sage

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Pepper to taste

1/2 teaspoon each, chili powder and cayenne pepper

2 cans cannellini beans

8 cups wild arugula

 

In a medium stock pot, add the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the onion and a pinch of salt. Cook until soft, about 3 minutes.

Add the sausage and red pepper flakes and cook until the sausage is no longer pink.

While the sausage is cooking, chop the carrots and potatoes. Small pieces will cook more quickly and be easier to eat.

Add the vegetables, spices, sage and chicken broth. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.

Simmer until the potaotes are tender, about forty minutes.

Add the beans and simmer another twenty minutes.

Add the arugula and simmer for ten more minutes.

Test your seasoning and adjust with salt or pepper.

 

Serve with freshly grated parmasan cheese and some qualty french bread.

Here is a photo of the finished product.

 

This soup does take quite a bit of time to make, so it is not best for a busy night, but it does make a whole lot of soup, so feel free to make it on a weekend and freeze most of it for a later date!

Week of New Things

This past week my parents went on a cruise to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. This left me and the boys (my husband and my brother) alone and me responsible for dinners. Feeling a little ambitious, I chose a menu comprised entirely of dishes I had never made before (except for pizza but that ended up not working so we had pasta.)

Some of these dishes came out better than others. Here are the dishes and my thoughts on each:

Stuffed Potato Pancakes-Great idea in theory but I must have done something wrong because they weren't that great. Aside from the fact that shredded potato oxidizes really quickly and turns kinda pink and then black after a while, this dish didn't really have any flavor. Also, the potato cakes soaked up all the oil used to fry them so they turned grey. I plan to try this again in the future, maybe asking some questions of the person who posted this dish first. No photos because they were too ugly.

Chocolate Chip Dream Bars-These were amazing! I accidentally over-baked them a little and they were still delicious. These have great flavor because, unlike a standard cookie bar, they have a crust and this crust was basically brown sugar and butter (and of course, my ever-present Pumpkin Pie Spice.) All in all, very delicious and a recipe I will keep and most certainly make again. Here are some photos:



You can see how crispy the top got; do not over-bake!
I actually made these twice within one week, they were so good I had to make them again! The second time I used less chocolate because it was all I had left and I was careful not to over bake them. This resulted in a much chewier texture that was similar to pecan pie filling. I thought this was very interesting and delicious!


Marinated Tofu and Vegetable Stir Fry-I wasn't too impressed with this when I first made it, but after I was done eating I decided it was really good. The vegetables I used were bell peppers (red and yellow), broccoli, bok choy (yum!) and white onion. The only problem I really had with this dish is it needed something to go with it, probably rice. A nice bowl of sticky rice with the stir fry on top would have been awesome. No photos, I forgot. I made this twice as well. When my parents came home I made them dinner for their anniversary and this was part of their dinner. They both enjoyed it.

Crab and Cream Cheese Stuffed Wontons-This is possibly my favorite dish this week! This recipe is very easy although extremely time consuming, an assembly line would have been nice. The original recipe called for imitation lobster but I though crab would be good since I had eaten Crab Ragoon (basically the same thing only fried) before. I also left out the green onion because I don't like it. The original recipe called for 1/2 a teaspoon of sriracha in the filling, you can see in the original step-by-step photos that her cream cheese is still white. I added at least 1 whole teaspoon, if not more and my cream cheese was pink! We like spicy food though so it was good. We ate this for lunch because we were running out of days on our own and I really wanted to make it. Supposedly this should have made about 32 wontons but I ended up using the whole package of wrappers (42!) and still had filling left! I could have easily served my whole family this dish (with some rice and veggies) and my parents would have enjoyed it. Photos:



Serve with some soy and sriracha sauce. Mmmmm.

Roasted Chicken and Vegetables-Yours truly has never roasted a chicken before. I know that sounds ridiculous since roast chicken is incredibly easy and very popular but somehow I have always ended up using my slow cooker instead. This week I was determined to roast a chicken like everyone else has. It came out very tasty! For my veggies I used leftover bok choy, leftover red and yellow bell peppers, new potatoes and zucchini. For my spices I chopped some rosemary and thyme, added some salt, black pepper, white pepper and garlic powder. After sprinkling the veggies with the spices I added the remainder to some soft butter and spread it over the chicken. The result was super crispy skin and slightly too oily veggies, but the chicken was very tender. The bok choy was my favorite veggie. Hooray for first tries!

To go along with the tofu stir fry I made for my parents I also made these Pork and Ginger Pot Stickers. I changed the recipe a bit. I did not want cabbage and other veggies inside so I made them with ground pork and ground beef. I did not have any sesame oil on hand and omitted the bouillon. They were superb! The recipe says to cook them for seven minutes but I found they did not need that long. I would say four minutes was plenty of time, all of the meat was thoroughly cooked by then. I had a bit of the filling left over and I cooked it up and added it to the left over stir fry for lunch the next day. It was yummy! Again, no photos but they looked pretty much the same as the other ones. I am now not afraid of making won tons and can't wait to make more!

Please check out these links and consider making some of them for your dinner.

Sam