First. In a large
pot I sautéed 8 slices of turkey bacon.
I chopped it up before I cooked it, but you could easily chop it
afterward if you prefer. After it was
cooked, I set it aside wrapped in a paper towel. Then I
added 2tbsp of butter to the same pot I just took the bacon out of; let it melt
and added 1 finely chopped onion. I let
it sauté for about 5-8 minutes to let it soften.
While the onions were cooking I grabbed from the pantry:
flour, chicken stock, salt and cayenne pepper.
Milk from the fridge too! When
the onions seemed soft, I dusted them with flour, about 2tbsp, maybe less, and
let that cook into the onions for about 2 minutes.
Now here is the important part: whisk, whisk, whisk. You have to make sure in the following steps
that the flour is getting whisked in properly and not forming clumps that are hard
to get rid of later. SO. Gradually, as I was whisking often, I added
in 3cups of skim milk, 1 can of chicken stock, a tsp of salt, and a good dash
of cayenne. Brought it to a gentle
simmer, and kept it going for about 3 minutes, still whisking often. I then added 3 medium sized russet potatoes, peeled
and then diced into approximately ½ in pieces.
Keeping it at a simmer only (no boiling!), I stirred often so the potatoes
didn’t get clumped up, for about 20 minutes.
I wanted them nice and soft in the soup!
Broccoli!! There
was A LOT of broccoli in our soup. While
the soup was simmering, I chopped up about 7 big heads of broccoli and put them
in a pyrex with a small amount of water and stuck them in the microwave. In total, they probably steamed in there for
a good 7-8 minutes, but you could do them longer or shorter depending on the
crispness of the broccoli you want for the soup. I left them sitting in the microwave
because they didn’t get mixed into the soup until the end.
SO, back to the soup on the stove…
Cheese… next came the cheese. I asked hubby to grate some cheddar and next
thing I know we have two kinds on the counter: Cougar Gold (a sharp white
cheddar, famous from our college creamery) and some regular sharp yellow
cheddar. So we did both. 1 cup of each got melted into the soup (In
reality, it was probably 1.5 cups of each… yummm, cheese). I then added a good dash of buffalo Tabasco
sauce (any pepper sauce would do). At
this point you could adjust the seasonings: pepper sauce, salt, cayenne, but
the sharp cheddars in mine made for a great flavor!
I mixed in the reserved turkey bacon and the steamed
broccoli, and ladled into bowls… VOILA!
SOUP.
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Side Note: Hubby exclaimed frequently while eating it
that he loved it, HOWEVER… he was not a fan of the fact that I used turkey
bacon. While he devoured what I made, he
thought regular bacon would have added a little somethin’ somethin’. Turkey bacon was what I had on hand
because I have been trying to eat better breakfasts, it Obviously doesn’t have
that much of an effect on the health of this soup since it is filled with
cheese! Haha, regardless of hubby's complaints, I thought it tasted great in this soup!
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Hope you enjoy!
Next week, I’m actually going to share some stuffs other than food! What a concept ;)
Happy Superbowl weekend!
Sam
So for you, this was like broccoli with potato/bacon/cheese sauce ;) I can only imagine how good it was with Cougar Gold in it!
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