souped up

You may want to take your computer to a more private place, because there is FOOD PORN AHEAD:

Heeeeeck yessssssssssss velvety goodness!

Okay back story: my December is going to be LOCO. I am graduating in December, so I’ll be dealing with finals and papers for FIVE classes (because I’m CRAZY and OVERLOADED in my LAST SEMESTER!) as well as packing up everything I own.

My last December was also on the loco side, due to a rather gruesome car crash carpooling on the way home from Thanksgiving break.

My solution to all of this? Soup. Big batches of it. Take gorgey veggies (there was a method to my farmer’s market madness!), make a big batch o’ soup out of them, and freeze in individual serving containers. Et voila, meal in a hurry with a minimum of fuss.

Soup #1: I found this recipe and was thrilled because it involved using up stuff taking up space in my fridge, like my big box o’ miso!

Mise en place:

 

Ginger, garlic, onion, tater (I didn’t peel it. I never peel potatoes, cause I generally buy red skinned and their skins are delicious and are the healthiest part!).

Roasties:

So gorgeous.

The final product:

Such unusual ingredients! It was mad filling with the miso!

 

I will say, actually, that the miso was a bit much. I halved the recipe and rather than using 1/3 of a cup of miso, I used 1/4… and it was still a lot!

Individual containers :D

Soup #2: no recipe, just winged it.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

Add a drizzling of olive oil to a pan on low heat, sprinkle in some crushed red pepper flakes, cook til aromatic. Then add butter (you can see it frothing in the lower right hand corner).

  

I love using a mixture of olive oil and butter- adding olive oil not only helps prevent the butter from burning, it replaces saturated fat with heart-healthy fat. My mother, who, being a proper Greek girl, is an olive-oil-eating-machine, just went for her annual physical at the doctors. He said she had the most spectacular HDL (“good” cholesterol) he had ever seen. Helllll yeah olive oil.

Then add chopped onion and garlic. Cook til golden and tender:

I always save the stems from broccoli. They are the most flavorful part! And in this recipe I pureed them anyway, so who cares about the aesthetics?

Chopped up, added to the onion mixture, and tossed around til golden.

  

At this point, I added veggie stock, enough to cover the broccoli, and simmered til the broccoli was tender.

Then I pureed it with 3/4 cup ish of milk and a sprinkling of nutmeg:

Broccoli milkshake!

I returned that puree to the pan, and then added:

I oz. sharp white cheddar cheese and

The broccoli florets- PURPLE!-, which I just micro-steamed for 30 seconds (and they probably didn’t even need that).

All together. Add RIDICULOUS quantities of black pepper (seriously, in my opinion broccoli-cheese soup cannot have too much black pepper) and cook on low til cheese melts.

More tupperwares!

My tupperware collection is officially exhausted. I actually was short one, so I took one of the butternut tupperwares (I made that last night) and ran hot water around it so the soup came out in one solid chunk, and then I wrapped the frozen soup chunk in saran wrap and returned it to the freezer and then had the tupperware for the using! I was actually ridiculously pleased with my ingenuity!