Recipe - Broccoli Curry Soup

Wow what a year it's been! Marriage, graduation, big move, new job, all in the time since my last post. It almost feels wrong to sum up such massive changes in a mere 6 words, but to get into any one of them would be a post in and of itself. Better to fast foward to the present matter at hand, and my reason for reviving this dear blog: Broccoli Soup.

This recipe is another of my mother's. She used to make it in winter, and I have fond memories of the familiar grind of her food processor whirring away one batch at a time. That thing is 10 years older than I am and is still working as well as ever. When Barry and I got married this Spring I put a food processor on our registry for the specific purpose of making this soup (among other things), and am sad to say this is the first time I've made it. But the food processor, as well as the many other marvelous registry-acquired kitchen tools have all been wonderful, and I have absolutely loved using every one of them. So a heartfelt thanks to the sweet friends and family who got us things for the kitchen. This year has been busy and downtime is a sparse commodity, but thanks to your gifts I can make time to relax every night as I make dinner. Thank you

With Barry on call tonight and the apartment now mostly clean, I figured I would break out the camera and share this great recipe with the world. Here's what you need:

Ingredients
1 large or 2 small broccoli crowns
1 potato
1 large can of chicken broth, or 1 regular can each of chicken and beef broth
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
1-2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon curry

1. To begin, rinse the broccoli and cut into florets. You can also peel and chop the stems, which I recommend since they have a slightly different flavor from the "tree" parts. Broccoli is a great example of the fractal geometry of nature. Just looking at it tells you nothing of the size, since the pattern which underlies the form is repeated at multiple levels. Beautiful!

2. Cook the broccoli with a cup of water over medium heat for about 10 minutes. Use a steamer basket if you like, but you don't need one. I like them because they keep your veggies from getting waterlogged and you can use them to transport everything when you're done.

3. Peel and chop the potato and boil for 10 - 15 minutes in salted water. I used 2 but ended up with much more than I needed. Drain and set aside.

4. Use the food processor to pulverize the broccoli and potatoes, but process them separately. You can add a little chicken broth to make the process go faster.

5. Next is my favorite step, making a roux (pronounced 'roo'). A roux is the first step in any gravy, sauce or soup recipe, and acts as a thickening agent. In a pan over medium heat melt 1 tablespoon butter and add to it one tablespoon of flour, stirring regularly with a whisk. Now a brief aside... I absolutely love kitchen gadgets because each one is so perfectly suited to a particular purpose. Take this whisk for example. Not only is it great at mixing things evenly (as are all whisks), but it's coated in silicon so that it doesn't scratch your teflon. It may seem unnecessary to own 5 different types of whisks, but to each his own. This one happens to be another awesome wedding present :)

6. After stirring the roux for a minute or two, add about half a cup of broth and continue whisking. When the broth starts to thicken you can add the broccoli puree and another half cup of broth. Add the pureed potato by spoonfuls and continue whisking. Keep adding the broth to keep a smooth consistency.

7. When the soup is the consistency you like season with salt and curry, about 1 teaspoon of each. Whisk until totally combined

8. Sigh, another walk down memory lane of early childhood flavors... Enjoy your soup fresh out of the pot or save for later. It's great reheated as well. Thanks Mom!

Recipe - Chilled Cucumber and Artichoke Soup

The inspiration for this soup came at 1am last night when I could not sleep (thank you very much, upstairs neighbors). I was thinking of what I could make with some of the leftover ingredients that have been hanging out in the fridge the last few weeks. My mom used to always make "clean out the ice box" dinners, which I thought was very June Cleaver of her. So in the spirit of my mom here is a yummy soup made from a mishmosh of leftover ingredients.

Ingredients:
1/2 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 bunch of celery (or most of a bunch)
1/2 can of artichoke hearts
1 can of chicken broth
1 small tub of sour cream
3 Tbs olive oil
1/2 Tbs butter
1 tsp celery seed
2 cups raw spinach
1 tablet of vitamin C
Salt and Pepper to taste

1. I like to cut everything up before getting started. That way you're not in a mad dash to chop the last of the celery while your garlic is buring. First the onion.

2. Next, garlic. I used to have one of those handy garlic presses but it broke so now I just chop each clove into tiny pieces. The press would probably be better but I haven't bothered to get a new one.

3. Next the celery. I have a warm place in my heart for celery. When my dad was growing up he lived in Sanford, FL, where they grew so much celery the town was named the Celery Capital of the United States. Farmers would cut off the tops of each bunch before sending the celery to market, so there would be huge piles of celery tops leftover. My dad and his brothers loved to climb up a ladder and jump into the celery leftovers. Hey says they always turned bright green and they got in trouble every time, but it was such fun they couldn't resist.

4. You can use as many artichoke hearts as you like. I ended up using 4, cut into quarters.

5. Once you've chopped everything up you're ready to go. Heat the butter and 1 Tbs of olive oil over medium heat.

6. First add the garlic. Let it cook for about a minute before adding the onion.

7. When your onions are nice and translucent add the celery.

8. Sautee the celery 5-6 minutes or until it starts to look slightly translucent before adding the artichokes.

9. Add a few shakes of celery seed and sautee until everything has roughly the same yellowish green color. About 10 minutes.

10. Turn off the heat and use a food processor to homogenize your mixture. This food processor is tiny so I had to do it in small batches.

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11. At this point I wasn't too sure what the next step was going to be. Lucky for me my friend Jim stopped by and asked what I was doing.

Melly - "making soup!"

Jim - "it looks like a French bolognese sauce"

Melly - "a what?"

Jim - "French bolognese. You put the vegetables back in the pot with some olive oil and cook for a long time, letting the bottom burn a bit before you mix it. It adds some nice caramelized flavor."

Melly - "a what?"

Thanks Jim for the awesome advice. Put 2 Tbs of olive oil into a stock pot over medium heat. Then add your processed vegetables and spread into a single layer.

12. Don't stir the vegetables until they've had some time to brown! Say 5 minutes or so. This took a lot of self control but was completely worth it.

13. Here's the fun part. When I was dreaming up this soup in the wee hours of the morning I envisioned a beautiful, bright green masterpiece. But as you can see from the pictures, our soup is more of a yellowy brown. So I thought I would borrow some fabulous advice from Food Network and green up our soup. With spinach! Use the food processor to finely mince 2 cups of spinach. To keep the beautiful bright green color you can use a pinch of powdered vitamin C. The antioxidant properties keep it from changing color. I ground up a tablet in a coffee grinder but you can also use a mortar and pestle. I added the powder right to the spinach before processing.

14. Once your spinach looks like this, put it all back in the food processor. Then add all of your soup. What once took 4 batches now all fits into one. Because everything has already been through the processor once, it should now blend more smoothly into a thick paste. When you're done put it back in the original pan (but wipe it with a paper towel first so there are no leftover big pieces).

15. What you end up with is pure gold! It may not look good right now but just you wait, it's about to be beautiful. First add the can of chicken broth. Use a whisk to combine it so you break up all the small pieces of condensed goodness.

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This is a good time to add salt and pepper. Or if you added some before, taste and adjust. The chicken broth will add some salt but you may need more than you think.

16. Finally, the sour cream. This will add significantly to the flavor of the soup but may mask some of the original artichoke/celery flavor, so you may want to add it one dollop at a time. Whisk to make sure there are no rogue clumps of soup or sour cream.

17. You can serve this soup warm if you like, but I think it's lovely served cold.

18. Bon appetit!