Obviously, being stuck at home make for adventuresome cooking and using what you have. The snow is melting at a rapid rate, but it is still chilly making soup sound like the perfect lunch. I have a few ingredients on hand and figure I can try to make my first ever broccoli cheese soup. Verdict, not bad. Not bad at all.
Ingredients:
Broccoli - I had two stalks, but you could use more or less
1 cup milk - you could use soy, almond or other milk substitute if you want a vegan soup
1 tablespoon butter - you could use olive oil if you wanted a vegan soup
Fresh ground pepper - I use a lot of this, but it is to taste
A dash of nutmeg - optional, but it adds a nice depth of flavor
2 cups chicken broth - you could easily use veggie broth, but I had chicken on hand
1 medium onion chopped into small dice
1 cup grated cheese - I used the Irish Cheddar that we had on hand, but you could use Swiss, regular cheddar or any other cheese that was in your refrigerator
Directions:
Melt butter into medium size pot.
Add onion and saute until translucent.
Chop broccoli florets into small pieces - less than an inch in size and add to pot.
Add milk, broth, nutmeg, and pepper. Simmer, don't boil, for 20 minutes. This should soften the broccoli.
Using an immersion blender, puree the soup until creamy. You can also use a blender, but I didn't want to deal with cleaning mine after I made the soup and I am always a little nervous about blending hot things. They can explode!
Add cheese and stir until melted.
Serve immediately.
A note about cheese: The cheese I used does not melt very well, it become granular, but is still tasty. A more traditional cheddar, swiss or Gruyere cheese would be a more velvety cheese. If you are purchasing cheese go for one of those. No, you can not use Velveeta; that isn't cheese. In fact, I'm not sure what it is at all.
