Food Rookie: Cream of Vegetable Soup

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Food Rookie series will be made up of low cost, high nutrition, easy cook meals.

One of the first lessons I learned when I moved out was food costs money!

It sounds silly to say that, but living at my parents it was easy to spring for the pizza and still cover all debts.

Now that I'm across an ocean from the warmth that was mooching, I have learned the true expense of my simple passion for food. So what better way to start off this blogg with a food post!

Moving to the center of Europe you learn how to cook from scratch, but being American I know the value of taking short cuts. These are the middle ground meals I have come across thus far in my kitchen experiments, I hope you enjoy!

Healthy Cream of Vegetable Soup

Ingredients:

  1. 1 liter Stock, water, or broth
  2. 1 small onion
  3. 1 small celery stalk
  4. 1 small carrot
  5. 3 cups broccoli and cauliflower florets
  6. 1 small potato
  7. chicken bouillon cube or powdered soup mix
  8. 1 cups Milk
Serves about 4-6 people

This recipe is easy as it gets, the only tools you need is a spoon, blender (hand or stick blender preferred) and a pot to cook it in.

Cut all ingredients in to pieces, the smaller you cut them the quicker it finishes.
Boil all but the milk and bouillon in a pot until very tender.
Add bouillon to taste, stir then let boil about 5 more min to mix well.
Remove from heat, add milk and blend well.

The reason I like this soup is that you can easily adapt it to anything you have on hand.
I have made this soup with leek, carrot, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, and assortments of left over vegetable scraps.

If you want to be healthy use a light milk 1% or 2% works fine. The potato and veggies them selves thicken the soup.

If you want to be bad, use cream!

This recipe can also have any kind of cheese added to it in the blending step for an extra punch.
Use spices Like Bay, whole pepper corns or Thyme when boiling to change and add flavors. This is a hearty and healthy beginners soup that will definitely stretch your dollar in the food budget!

2 Comments:

Amy said...

What no garlic? Shocking!

DJ said...

In a soup garlic can be dangerous, that is if your not a huge garlic fan, it's easy to over power the flavor of the soup. After you make the recipe a few times you will start adding things to the pot to experiment!