Soup of the Week – Pureed Broccoli Soup

Good things come to those who wait, right?

Thanks for waiting for this week’s soup! I really did not think to plan ahead for this post. Well, I did – I decided I would make broccoli soup, but I did not exactly set aside time to actually make it.

But I know you’ll forgive me because we were off on a wonderful weekend adventure with our Kidzilla to a kid-friendly Halloween fest at an amusement park and to see Disney’s Frozen on Ice. It was a great trip and I had the post-weekend fatigue in my bones on Sunday to prove it!

I figured I would get my soup on early Monday morning after dropping Zilla off at school, but she ended up staying home for the day thanks to a bit of rogue food dye on Sunday evening at dinner that knocked her system all out of whack. Poor kid! So I spent most of the day with my little girl and put the soup on hold. Wouldn’t you?

As I was getting things ready, Zilla asked, “Why does the kitchen smell like foul, wet broccoli?”I had to laugh because her delivery, as usual, was spot-on. I told her it was because I had broccoli tops sitting at the ready and frozen broccoli stalks thawing on the counter (they do stink, by the way, in a manner much different from when they are un-frozen). I promised her it would be far less foul-smelling by dinnertime. She raised a skeptical little eyebrow at me and went in search of a sweatshirt.

Anyway, I did finally put the soup together while Zilla and her Fab Dad were outside with her bike this evening and the final result was anything but foul.

Two of the reasons I settled on this particular soup were the amount of broccoli required (a lot) and the amount of stock required (not a lot). I do not have much homemade stock left in the freezer but I do have a whole lot of broccoli in my refrigerator.

This one comes to you from Eating Well Magazine’s site. Oh, and did I mention this only takes about 45 minutes? Yup – weeknight Soup of the Week! Huzzah! Also, I did not have to shop for one single ingredient – everything was already in my kitchen and may very likely be in yours, too. So get cooking!

Puréed Broccoli Soup Recipe – Eating Well

What You Need:

• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped (I used two tiny ones I had in the pantry.)
• 1 stalk celery, chopped (I completely skipped this because I loathe celery. But I did throw in a bit of dried Celery Seed to alleviate my guilt.)
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme or parsley (I did not measure the parsley, but I can tell you it was far from one teaspoon. I tossed in some dried thyme as well – maybe about a teaspoon.)
• 8 cups chopped broccoli (stems and florets)
• 2 cups water (I had about a cup of organic chicken stock from the supermarket sitting in the fridge so I used that in place of one cup of the water. See? No waste!)
• 4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth, “no-chicken” broth (see notes) or vegetable broth (I used organic vegetable from a box – told you I had none left!)
• 1/2 cup half-and-half (optional) (I had light cream in the fridge, so I used that.)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Freshly ground pepper to taste

What to Do: (Verbatim per the Eating Well site)

1. Heat butter and oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat until the butter melts. Add onion and celery; cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 4 to 6 minutes. Add garlic and thyme (or parsley); cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 10 seconds.
2. Stir in broccoli. Add water and broth; bring to a lively simmer over high heat. Reduce heat to maintain a lively simmer and cook until very tender, about 8 minutes.
3. Puree the soup in batches in a blender until smooth. (Use caution when pureeing hot liquids.) Stir in half-and-half (if using), salt and pepper.

Notes and Stuff I Think You Should Know:

• From the Eating Well site, I grabbed this note about the “no-chicken” broth: “Chicken-flavored broth, a vegetarian broth despite its name, is preferable to vegetable broth in some recipes for its hearty, rich flavor. Sometimes called “No-Chicken Broth,” it can be found with the soups in the natural-foods section of most supermarkets.” I had no idea such a thing existed, but there you go.
• This is easily made vegan with the omission of the butter and half-and-half or cream. You could even toss in some nutritional yeast flakes if you want to up the protein or go for a slightly cheesy but vegan version. I had some in the cupboard, but completely forgot.
• I used about half broccoli florets and half stalks that I had leftover and frozen from occasions where we only used the tops from our broccoli. If you don’t mind a slightly paler green for your soup, you could really use this as a way to get rid of those stalks if nobody in your house likes to eat them.
• I did use the Vitamix to get a velvety texture for this, but I think you could certainly go with an immersion blender and keep it a bit on the chunky side, if you prefer. I loved the smoothness of this one.

To serve, I simply grabbed what we had on hand. For me, that was feta and some red pepper flakes sprinkled on top. Kidzilla had some organic whole wheat crackers on the side. The Fab Hub had leftover Green Soup because I have yet to find a way to get him to eat broccoli. I definitely think shredded cheddar cheese would be a perfect topping as well.

On the side, we went with whole wheat pita bread with hummus or labne from a favorite local Middle Eastern bakery and deli. Delicious. I also had some tempeh to use, so I sliced it and quickly made some tempeh “bacon” from Kathy Patalsky at Happy. Healthy. Life. I suppose I should have served some fabulous vegetable on the side…but it’s broccoli soup. I think we’ll survive until tomorrow.

Kidzilla said this was “the best soup you’ve ever made us in our whole lives.”

So go make some, already!

Enjoy!

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I would normally link you to the site where I found the recipe, but every time I visit the page, my anti-malware thing tells me “a threat has been detected.” I didn’t want to send you there or run the link through my site and cause a problem. If you do visit the Eating Well site, go forewarned!