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Plan Z Phase: This is a Z3 (ZReboot) recipe. I love a good broccoli cheese soup. Trouble is so many puree the whole pot of soup. I want my soup chunky. Trouble is so many of these soups include Velveeta cheese ‘food.’ I hardly call that food. If I were on a dessert island with no refrigeration, maybe I would. Otherwise I want my soup to have real cheese and no processed elements. Trouble is most broccoli soups call for frozen bits of broccoli. In the recipe you’ll roast fresh broccoli so it gets a deeper flavor. This is creamy, dreamy and a BIG YUM.

Servings: Serves 8 – 10 with 1-1/2 cups of soup.

Ingredients:

• 4 – 5 cups of broccoli florets and stems, chopped
• 2 Tbl of olive oil plus olive oil spray
• grated sea salt to taste
• 1 cup of diced shallots or onion
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 Tbl of flour
• 4 cups of whipping cream
• 3 pinches of pumpkin pie spice
• 3 – 4 cups of grated cheddar. I love the artisan combos with different types of cheddar but really you can use any grated cheese. A combo of grated Monterey jack and even a bit of blue cheese added in would be nice. Gruyere is always great. Don’t just think cheddar; although that’s the tradition.
• ground pepper to taste
• chicken broth or veggie broth (optional if you want your soup less thick)

Ingredients:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray an oven proof pan or two and spread your broccoli bits on the tray. Spray over the top with olive oil and grate on some sea salt. Roast the broccoli 15 minutes or until it just begins to get a tinge of brown on a few of the florets. The roasting brings out a deeper flavor in the broccoli.

While the broccoli is roasting you can make the soup base.

Put 2 Tbl of olive oil in your soup pot. Heat on medium and add the shallots or onions. Stir and cook on medium just until they begin to get a bit of brown. Add the flour and stir. You are making a roux (thickener for the soup). I devised this so just a bit of flour is necessary. Not much! The rest of the thickening will come because you are using cream. Add the butter and melt.

Now add the whipping cream and the pumpkin pie spice. Also grate on plenty of black pepper to your taste. Stir often and cook on medium just until the cream begins to bubble. Turn down to low. Or turn off if the broccoli isn’t ready yet.

Add the broccoli and bring to a simmer. Add the cheese(s). You just want to get the cheese to melt. Don’t boil the soup at this point.

You can now serve. OR…. what I did was take out three cups of the soup and pureed it. That way I got some pureed broccoli but still had plenty for the chunky factor. I pureed the soup in my blender. I am always careful when I puree something hot to vent it at the top and put a towel over the cover and hold down firmly.  Start the blender on LOW.  You won’t need to crank up the speed. Low will be fine. Add the puree to your soup pot. Stir and serve.

If the soup is thicker than you want just add veggie broth or chicken broth to thin it out.

Enjoy!

Cheers,