Easy (and healthy!) Broccoli Soup with toppings!

It got a little stormy this weekend. We had blue skies and warm weather Saturday and Sunday morning, but by Sunday afternoon there was rain and palm tree parts flying around outside. Palm tree parts are probably the worst part about storms here, they are pretty large and end up all over the place when it's windy.

We might have underestimated the weather when we went out for a walk on Sunday... (at this point Nathan was saying "stop taking pictures we need to get home!" and I was trying to figure out how to take pictures without getting rain inside my phone)

Palm trees weren't the only casualties, there were also a couple of trees that lost largish branches in the park by our house. Nathan was considering taking one home (about 12 feet long), 'cause it would be a cool trophy from our walk, but in the end we left it under the tree it fell out of. 

So basically to sum it all up, Sunday was a perfect soup day. We settled on a broccoli soup since we had a big Costco bag of florets in the fridge. This soup is super full of vegetabley goodness, and is super simple to make. We hope you enjoy it!

__________________________________________

Ingredients:

1 - onion diced

1 lb - broccoli

32 oz. - chicken stock

1 cup - water

1 tsp - garlic powder

red pepper flakes and salt to taste

Optional toppings:

bacon bits

sautéed mushrooms

cheddar cheese 

tabasco sauce

cashews

Get all your ingredients ready. For this soup I used a bag of ready cut broccoli florets. That made it super easy to prepare since I could just dump them into the pot. I kinda feel like that was cheating, but for some reason they were actually cheaper precut at Costco than whole at our Von's, so in the cart they went!

These bacon bits are pretty good, they are kind of like bacon and kind of like beef jerky. A friend left them at our house after a baked potato party and they worked really well on the soup.

Start by sauteing your onion in a little butter or oil until they cook down and get soft. Now just dump your broccoli on top. Throw in your seasoning and add your chicken broth and water.

Bring the whole thing to a simmer and cover with a lid. Cook for 10 minutes or until the broccoli gets tender.

While you're waiting for the broccoli to soften you can work on making some of the toppings. We bought a box of mushrooms at Costco so I decided to use those as one of the toppings. I started by selecting and washing 5 medium sized mushrooms. You can totally skip this step and make other toppings if you like. I think cheddar cheese would be good, we were out, but next time I make this I'm getting cheese.

and of course I took the picture before washing them... ewwww...

Wash them and slice them thinly.

Throw them in a pan with a bit of butter.

Now just poke them around a bit until they cook down and look like cooked mushrooms.

Ok! Now back to the soup! Your broccoli should be pretty soft now so we can start going after it with the immersion blender. There may be some broccoli sticking up out of the liquid try to smoosh it down as you blend (this is why the broccoli needs to be super soft). Also, be careful, immersion blenders can shoot hot soup at you when they are not fully immersed. If you are worried about this whole immersion blender/scalding hot soup thing you can always use a traditional blender instead, I was just feeling lazy.

smooshing broccoli with my immersion blender

partially blended

fully blended!

Now that you've blended everything check to make sure the soup is the consistency that you want. It might be a little on the thick side, if that is the case you can thin it a bit with some more chicken broth or water. If you are feeling daring you can thin it out with a cream to make a cream of broccoli soup. Serve it up hot and cover with your favorite toppings!

poor little bread bowl getting photographed on our wet balcony.

We ate ours with a loaf of sourdough bread from Boudins, and yes I reused my bread bowl from lunch... we're still students and I have this compulsion to always take my leftovers home. Maybe that's weird.. but I'm going to vote for frugal. :)

Directions:

1. Saute diced onions in butter until soft

2. Add broccoli, spices, and chicken broth and bring to a low boil

3. Cover and let simmer for 10 min or until broccoli is very tender

4. Blend the soup adding more liquid (broth or water) to achieve desired thickness (add cream to make a cream of broccoli soup).

5. Serve up and cover in toppings!

6. Enjoy!

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Hearty Turkey Chili

We haven't had any meat since the accident since we've been a little scared of blending meat. (Well, actually, I did blend some chicken the first week, but it didn't turn out too well...). Up until now Nathan has been getting most of his protein from dairy, tofu, beans and quinoa. However, this week we decided it was time to give meat a second chance.

my bowl, since avocados make Nathan throw up... poor dude.

Chili seemed like a good place to start, since it's already soupy anyway. I ate mine unblended (see photo above), and Nathan ate his blended (photo at the bottom of post). Both turned out well, and when Nathan can chew again I might still blend a couple cups of the chili and mix it back into the main batch because it makes it extra thick and yummy.

Ingredients:

1 lb. - ground turkey

1 - onion diced

4 cloves - garlic diced

2 - jalapenos diced (less for less heat, or sub a green bell pepper to avoid spiciness altogether) 

2 Tbsp - chili powder

28 oz. - crushed tomatoes

16 oz. - chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

There is way too much chicken stock in this photo, I don't know what I was thinking.

Start by sauteing the onions, garlic and pepper in olive oil at the bottom of your soup pot. Wait for them to get a little soft, around 5 min. 

Next add your chili powder. Stir the whole think around for a minute or so, add a splash of the chicken broth if things begin to stick.

Throw in your turkey.

my turkey was still a little frozen, but I slowly broke it up and all was fine. Who needs defrosting, not me! (maybe... might have to revisit that stance later...)

Cook until turkey is thoroughly cooked. If the turkey was not very lean you can drain some of the grease off now.

Now add your tomatos and chicken stock. Mine were frozen in a ziplock bag in the freezer (we buy the big cans from Costco and freeze them in usable portions, really cheap that way).

Let everything simmer for about 15 min to let the flavors mingle.

Garnish with cilantro, lime, avocado, cheese, sour cream, or anything else that sounds yummy to you.

Enjoy!

_______________________________________________

Optional Blending Steps for Broken Jaw Folks:

Toss some in the blender with a few sprigs of cilantro

Blend on high until you get a soupy consistency. Add more chicken broth here if it is not liquidly enough (You want to make sure it's thin enough that you can easily drink it).

Enjoy!

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Cheddar Broccoli Soup

Our poor celery had been in the back of the fridge for several weeks and didn't look like it was going to survive much longer. To give it one last shot at a meaningful life we decided to make this tasty broccoli soup. :)

The celery from the back of the fridge... sad celery?... or possibly hip mustache celery?

If you ever find yourself in this situation know that you can partially revive celery by cutting of the bottom and sticking it in a cup of water. However, if you are putting on making a blended soup you can skip reviving it since the goal is to make it mushy anyway.

Ingredients:

1 - onion

32 oz. - chicken stock

3 - garlic cloves

2 - small heads broccoli (or one big head, our grocery store only had tiny ones left)

3 - stalks celery

1/2 cup - cream

1/4 - tsp red pepper flakes (more or less to adjust spiciness)

1 cup - shredded cheddar (which I totally forgot to put in the photo! sorry!)

salt and pepper to taste

Start by dicing the onion, garlic and celery. Don't worry about uniformity, since we're going to blend it later. 

Saute the diced onion, garlic, and celery in butter until soft. While you're waiting cut up your broccoli into small chunks (smaller chunks make it cook faster which is good!).

When the onions are soft add the broccoli and spices and stir around.

Next add your chicken stock and let the whole thing simmer until the broccoli pieces are tender. Transfer the mixture to the blender and blend adding the cream and the cheese. 

 Enjoy!

Note: If you are reading this and, like Nathan, are recovering from jaw surgery we recommend leaving out the cheddar cheese. Even though it was melted Nathan still had trouble with it getting stuck in his wires. That made this soup hard to eat durring the rubber-banded phase of his recovery.

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Fresh Asparagus Soup

You may have noticed that nearly all the food I've posted about is orange or red. We noticed that too and figured it was probably time for a green soup. This one is super good and fresh tasting. I think we'll be making it again really soon.

_______________________________________________

It's asparagus season here in San Diego and when I saw these bunches in our supermarket I couldn't pass them up (especially since they were just $0.99 a pound!) A friend sent me this recipe and the following is my variation on it. We made it both the way in the original recipe and the way documented below. We found that the soup with just asparagus (no peas) tasted fresher and brighter so that's the variation I included here. Let's get started. :)

Ingredients:

1 bunch - asparagus

1 - onion

2 Tbsp - olive oil

32 oz. - chicken stock

1/2 cup - cream

salt and pepper to taste 

1/2 cup - parmesan (optional) more for garnish

The last time Nathan and I cooked asparagus (back in the chewing days) we ran into trouble because we forgot to cut the tough woody part off at the bottom. This led to some difficult chewing situations, and I'm pretty sure it would also be a problem in the blender. We mentioned this to our friend who shared this wonderful asparagus tip with us. Basically to find out how much of the asparagus stalk is woody you hold it between your hands and let it break wherever is natural natural. Because the tender part is springy it will always break at the boundary between the tough and tender part. Genius! We made a video that explains how to do it, check it out below.

Ok, now that you've removed the tough parts, chop up your asparagus into 1 inch lengths.

 Chop and saute the onion in the soup pot. Once the onions soften up add in the chopped asparagus.

Add the seasoning and the stock and let simmer until the asparagus is tender.

Unfortunately it looses some of it's pretty green color, but we really need to cook it long enough so that it will blend and go through sieve nicely. And don't worry, it still tastes fresh and springy even though it's not bright green.

ok, looking pretty tender now.

Blend in batches in the blender, add the cream while you blend. If you are using the parmesan you can add it durring this step as well.

Blended!

soup pictured with the bike that started it all... hmph... grumbles...

When serving the soup, garnish with parmesan cheese and enjoy!

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Spicy Pumpkin Curry Soup

I figured it was just about time for a cheery picture so I thought I'd share this one from our 2nd anniversary. You can tell that Nathan loves me a lot because he wearing a silly hat for me, and he is still smiling.

You can be really happy too, because originally instead of a cheery picture, I was thinking of posting a picture of Nathan's stitches. Then I realized that might put you off from making soup so I went with this instead. Yay!

Ingredients:
7 oz. -  pumpkin puree
1 - onion diced
1 tsp - nutmeg
1/2 tsp - cayenne pepper
1/2 Tbsp - curry powder
1 Tbsp - peanut butter (or substitute, we used sunflower butter cause I'm allergic to the real stuff)
2 Tbsp - butter or oil
32 oz. - chicken stock
Sriracha to taste

Start by sauteing the onions in the butter. Once they are soft, add the spices and stir around for about a minute. Then add the pureed pumpkin and mush it all together.

mush mush mush.

Chicken broth is next, just dump it all in and bring it to a simmer. Now add your scoop of real or fake peanut butter. If you can eat the real kind I am SOOOOOO jealous! It should just melt into the soup and disappear. 

Run everything through the blender and garnish with a little (or a LOT) or Sriracha. :)

More Sriracha is ALWAYS better. :D

Enjoy!

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Creamy Butternut Squash Soup

Well we are in week 3 now. Nathan's starting to feel a bit more peppy, but it's still a slow recovery. When they did the surgery they had to move one of his main facial nerves which resulted in his face being mostly numb on his left side. Recently his nerve has begun to recover (yay!) but that also means that he's getting random bursts of pain now that he can feel that part of his face again (boo!).

Today Nathan rode his bike again for the first time since the accident. I think we need to take it into the shop to get it aligned, but it worked ok for the short distance we went today. It's important to show the bike who's boss, wouldn't want it to get any crazy ideas. 

While Nathan did get some of his rubber bands taken off last week he still has enough on that he can't open his mouth to get a straw or a spoon in so we're still doing the super pureed soups so that he can drink it through his teeth. Here's the recipe for a butternut squash soup we just made. :)

Ingredients:

1 - largish butternut squash

1 - onion

32 oz. - chicken stock

1/2 cup - cream

1 tsp - marjoram

dash - cayenne pepper

salt to taste

Start by chopping the onion and softening it in a soup pot with the butter.

Next start peeling and dicing the butternut squash. This is kind of a pain, and actually I read later online that instead of doing this you can just cut the squash in half and roast it in the oven for a while (here's a link to some instructions I found). Then when you take it out you can just scoop the soft insides out. I think I'll do it that way next time.

But, since I did do it the hard way, I though I'd show off this nice bowl of butternut squash cubes. The squash I picked filled two bowls of this size.

Ok, and also a close up, cause that was hard and I'm not doing it again. :)

Once the onions are soft toss in your cubes (or your mushy roasted squash if you used the roasted method)

Next add you spices, mush everything around for a minute, and then add your stock.

simmer until everything is tender

and SURPRISE! next put it in the blender!

Will it Blend?

Yes!

Take a picture of it on your balcony but zoom in really far so that people can't tell that the view from your balcony is really a parking lot. Enjoy!

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan