Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook!
Another day, another bowl of soup.
In my last post, I mentioned that Mr. Stone Soup had to have some oral surgery–specifically, he had to have some teeth removed. While his mouth heals, he needs to eat soft foods. Soup is the obvious food of choice for his recovery. The challenge is going to be keeping this diet interesting and nutritious enough to give his body the fuel it needs to regain its strength.
I’ve been turning to superfoods as much as I can, and last night was no exception. I knew I had a bag of broccoli (actually broccolini, but…) in the refrigerator. I rummaged around a little more and came up with a potato, a bunch of leeks, and a piece of a fennel bulb, so I decided to throw that in at the last minute, too.
Broccoli is a superfood, so it’s good for you–I mean REALLY good for you. A serving of broccoli has 90% of your daily requirement of vitamin C, 75% of vitamin K (a very important vitamin in blood clotting and bone maintenance) and 15% of your daily requirement of folate. Broccoli is also a good source of potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, copper and zinc. It also has about 2.5 grams of fiber and practically no fat.
OK–so broccoli is good for you–great. Making the broccoli into a palette-tempting soup–now, that’s the headline! Enter broccoli-leek-potato soup:
I started by sautéing the leeks and a couple of cloves of garlic in some butter. Once softened, I added a couple of tablespoons of all-purpose flour in order to make a bit of roux for thickening. I stirred in chicken stock, added the potato and a bay leaf and simmered for 10-12 minutes until the potato was fork tender. I added the broccolini and fennel and a couple of tablespoons of preserved lemon paste and simmered for another 7-8 minutes until the broccolini was tender, but still nicely green:
I fished out the bay leaf and then used my immersion blender to thoroughly puree the soup. I added a little cream and pureed again until the soup was super creamy:
I tasted for seasoning and added some lemon-pepper and season-all to give it a little more punch. I also ended up adding about a teaspoon of “Better Than Bouillon” paste to boost the flavor. The combination of vegetables in the soup are good for you, but turns out they needed some flavor “perk-ups.” The end result was a very serviceable “one-and-done” meal–protein, vegetables and carbs all in one bowl. And bonus–it can easily be made into a vegetarian soup by substituting vegetable broth for chicken broth.
And, so–onward and upward!
At the market over the weekend, I bought several beautiful bell peppers. Tonight’s repast is going to be a version of the soup from today, only with a red onion instead of leeks and the peppers instead of the broccolini and fennel.
Not gonna lie: I’m looking forward to Mr. Stone Soup being able to eat solid food again soon 😉
Tune in tomorrow for the next adventure in soup–until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
