Dueling Emotions... or, Asparagus and Broccoli Soup with Herbed Goat Cheese

There used to be a commercial, I'm not even sure what for, but it had these women who kept saying they wanted to go to the zoo, but they couldn't because they were out of olive oil. Or they wanted to play in the backyard, but they ran out of toilet paper.

I want to take a bubble bath, but I got a new cookbook and I want soup and biscuits.

I need to both watch The Real Housewives of Everywhere and to make soup, but I have no TV in my kitchen.
I want to eat soup, but I ALSO want to eat melty chocolate cake, but my kitchen is small and I don't have the necessary ingredients... and I need to watch the Housewives.
So many dueling emotions.


I want to drink champagne. But I gave up drinking for lent, except on Fridays and Saturdays.

I am not very good at lent.



I want to cook steak for my husband... but we are out of steak. I am NOT out of broccoli, asparagus and goat cheese.

Broccoli, Asparagus and Herbed Goat Cheese Soup
loosely translated from here (Thanks, Giada!)
ingrediences
3 cups of trimmed asparagus, cut into 1"-ish pieces
4 cups of broccoli florets
4 T goat cheese
1 T chopped fresh basil, or dried, if you're the kind of girl who doesn't have fresh today (I'm totes that kind of girl)
A squeeze of lemon juice
4 cups of chicken stock (or, 4 cubes of your homemade chicken stock ice cubes plus enough water to make 4 cups)
2 T unsalted butter
1 more T of chopped fresh basil
1 medium diced onion (harsh realities: I keep diced onion in a baggie in my freezer. there are white, red and yellow onions in there. there, i said it. they work just fine)


Roast them veggies with some EVOO and S&P at 350 for about 15 minutes. do not burn yourself.





























While they roast away, prepare the herbed goat cheese:

Smoosh the goat cheese and basil with the lemon juice and some S&P in a bowl.

Smoosh it.

Using your fancy William-Sonoma cookie scoop, scoop up 4 1"-ish balls of cheese and put on a plate in the fridge to set.





























In your soup pot (you don't need a huge one), heat the butter and sweat the onion.

Add the veggies and stock, and the basil. Bring to a simmer, for about 15 minutes. 

Then blennnnnnnnnd it with an immersion blender. Perfection.

It's not super beautiful in the pot... but it's beautiful in your mouth. I promise.


Soup Santa doesn't lie.



Best served with these Whole Wheat Honey and Goat Cheese Drop Biscuits, from my brand new, signed copy of The Joy The Baker Cookbook, which I got today from Omnivore Books, which is officially my new obsession.

You should visit. http://omnivorebooks.com/. Also, I met JOY THE BAKER today. No bigs/ totally bigs. She wrote about soup inside my copy of her book.


Harsh realities: when you're hurrying to put dinner on the table (wow, you're such a good wife!) and you also need to photograph said dinner for your silly little soupy blog, catastrophes can happen.

Like your best fruit bowl can swan dive into oblivion.

No produce was harmed (purposefully) in the making of this blog... except for the ones I ate....

anyway.

Doesn't the table look pretty? No broken bowls here!

My husband waits patiently to enjoy his soup supper.

Very serious biscuit preparation.

These biscuits are sweet and salty. Like my husband.

They match the tangy goat cheese glob that melts into the veggie goodness of this soup. This soup is totally healthy, but feels extra decadent, on account of the glob of goat cheese in the middle.

Dueling soup-motions. 

Soup Sunday: you're doing it right.

Creamless Cream of Broccoli Soup

Ooooooh y'all, today is Soup Santa's day off!




That means that by noon today, I have already gone to the DMV, gone to the market to get ingredients for this broccoli soup and crack dip (thanks a heap, pinterest), and gone to the MINI dealership to get a gift for my sweetie.


Oh, and I walked 3 miles.


It also means that I'm going to enjoy the perfect mimosa, the most important part of my liquid diet.


The Perfect Mimosa
it's just what the doctor ordered.


Trust me. I'm a doctor.


Step one: juice one orange. Maybe two if you have two. It's a mimosa - not nuclear fission.
Step two: open a bottle of champagne.
Step three: pour a healthy glass of champagne.
Step four: pour a splash of OJ into your glass.
Step five: pour the rest of the juice into the bottle, being VERY CAREFUL not to let it bubble over. (Ignore the OJ stain on the tablecloth)
Step six: enjoy the perfect mimosa (or 5).








And now the soup...




Creamless Cream of Broccoli Soup
lovingly adapted from Joy the Baker


Ingrediences:
2 cups raw cashews, soaked in water for one hour
1 white onion, diced
1 T olive oil

about 5 cups broccoli, steamed and chopped

1 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon salt
fresh ground black pepper (I used lemon pepper from Trader Joe's)
3 teaspoons fresh lemon juice (squeeze of half a lime)
Splash Worcestershire sauce
about 4 cups of water

You need an immersion blender. If you don't have one, you need to get one. They are magical. Be sure to get the one that doubles as a food processor and grater. Or get one that is purple. It's just as good as a multi-purpose one.

After soaking, the cashews become softer. This makes them easier to blend later. Awesome!
Heat the oil in a soup pot. Add the onion and saute until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add 1 teaspoon nutmeg and 1 teaspoon cumin. Stir for about another minute. Add fresh ground pepper and broccoli to the pot. Pour cashews and water, and use your handy immersion blender to blend it all together until smooth. Add splash (or several...) of Worcestershire and squeeze of lemon, and salt to taste. Heat and serve.


Enjoy, y'all.




Kisses,
Soup Santa.

What we learned:

It's pretty thick. Maybe you dig that. It doesn't have anything but good stuff in it, so I suppose it's fine. You could add milk (though that would be dairy... and we are not tolerant of dairy) or stock, I'm sure. 

Or just drink a mimosa already.