a peek inside the fishbowl

My family is not exactly a soup-loving family, a fact which makes me a little sad because SOUP IS THE BEST THING. It’s healthy, hearty, and can be a great way of using up leftovers.

I made this broccoli cheddar soup recipe from Chatelaine twice in the last week, that’s how good it is.

I’ve tried other broccoli soup recipes and haven’t liked any of them enough to add it to the family repretoire. This one gets all the checkmarks: it’s creamy without using heavy cream and doesn’t use celery or carrots (is it a really broccoli soup if there are carrots in it?). Broccoli is the star of the show! I also like the fact you add your own cheese at the end. It makes for a cheaper recipe and if you don’t like a LOT of cheese (in which case I’m not sure if we can be friends) you can toss in just a little bit or none at all. This soup is comfort in a bowl.

I made the recipe almost exactly as written but I didn’t have vegetable broth so I used chicken instead. The first time I made this recipe I added the salt and it was a bit too salty for my liking. Perhaps it’s because I used a saltier broth in that batch. I left the added salt out the second time around and used sodium-reduced broth and it was perfect.

For the first batch I dropped a, er, handful of grated cheddar at the end. For the second batch, I made my cheesy sourdough croutons instead. I recommend it. They’re so easy to make:

• Drop a good amount of butter on a hot frying pan.
• Cube a slice of sourdough bread and add to the melted butter. Toss.
• Fry bread in the butter until golden.
• Add a handful of grated cheddar and stir, separating the bread cubes, until the cheese is melted and browned.
• Add to your soup!

You’ll notice in the photo above that I got a little excited about those sourdough croutons and made too many for my bowl of soup. But don’t worry. There is no such thing as too many cheesy croutons and there were no wasted croutons in the making of this recipe. They are yummy enough to be eaten on their own.

Let me know if you try this recipe! I’d love to know how it worked out for you.