Sunday afternoon, a “souper time”

 

This afternoon, after filling out the FAFSA for the seventh consecutive year, I coerced Chelsea and her boyfriend Taylor into helping me chop vegetables for a winter soup.  Because I’m still harvesting plenty of broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage from the garden, I made a soup I’ll call “Creamy Winter Vegetable Soup.” 

I didn’t use a recipe, but I based it on the concept of a cream of broccoli soup.

We chopped a half dozen potatoes, a large onion, a head of broccoli, a head of cauliflower, a head of cabbage, 3 stalks of celery, a couple of carrots and a turnip and dumped it all into a large stock pot.

Does this sound like peasant food or what? But I love good honest grub like this.

 I seasoned the veggies with a couple or three tablespoons of olive oil, a tablespoon of butter, some salt and pepper, some Mrs. Dash, some seasoned salt and plenty of pepper, all to taste. 

I barely covered the vegetables with about a quart of water, then boiled them until soft. Lots of good vegetable-y flavored water cooked out of the veggies, creating a flavorful broth. The thing that really gave our soup a creamy richness, though, is the block of cream cheese I sneaked in toward the end. I used the reduced fat kind because it’s what I had on hand.  Besides, it’s softer and melts more quickly.

This concoction made a big pot of soup, and I thought I’d have plenty to send back to campus with Chelsea, but everyone liked it so much that there isn’t much left.   

Our baby girl is back off to college tomorrow.  *Sniff*

I’m sure going to miss having her around.