Since we are snowed in, I thought that tonight would be the perfect night to make homemade soup.
My favorite soup is definitely broccoli cheddar, and I order it at Panera a lot. I’ve eaten it at many different restaurants, but they have my favorite version. I searched the web, and found a bunch of different Panera broccoli cheddar soup recipes. They are all very similar, so I picked one and got started.
The ingredient list is as follows:
* 1 tablespoon melted butter
* 1/2 medium chopped onion
* 1/4 cup melted butter
* 1/4 cup flour
* 2 cups half-and-half cream
* 2 cups chicken stock
* 1/2 lb fresh broccoli
* 1 cup carrot, julienned
* 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
* 8 ounces grated sharp cheddar cheese
* salt and pepper
To make the recipe more health friendly I used less butter, substituted 1% milk for the half-and-half, and doubled the amounts of both vegetables.
I could have substituted reduced or non-fat cheese, but that stuff is gross. I know I am trying to eat healthier, but I love cheese, and I just can’t bring myself to eat that stuff.
Also, I omitted the nutmeg—but only because we didn’t have any. It’s such a small amount that I doubt it makes much of a difference.
On a similar note, one of the reasons college students avoid cooking homemade meals is lack of ingredients. This recipe was great for me to make in this respect, because the only thing I had to pick up at the store was fresh broccoli and an onion as I pretty much always have the rest of the ingredients in the house.
I’m glad I went to the store and did a huge shop on Thursday night, because otherwise we would be snowed in without any food, let alone delicious soup.
It took me about 2 hours to cook the soup in its entirety, so this is definitely not a time friendly recipe. However, it would be a great idea to make a large amount of a recipe like this on Sunday and then save it in the fridge to heat up throughout the week when you are strapped for time.
I have to say that the soup turned out really, really good. It tasted just like Panera’s, and it was perfect for a cold, snowy day. I will definitely be cooking it again.
On the puppy front, their weekly puppy class was obviously canceled due to the snowstorm. They didn’t seem to mind and enjoyed sleeping in this morning along with us.
They had good reason to be tired; during the snowstorm last night we walked them over to our friend’s house (during which I fell a total of 6 times) to play in the snow with their dog friend Philly. They ran around the snow forever and came home as extremely tired pups. They also came home as extremely wet and gross smelling pups, so they got baths before they went to bed.
I’ll wrap up tonight’s post with pictures of the pups running around in the snow this afternoon…
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- snow pups
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- wrestling, the usual
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- catching and eating snowballs
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- snowy trees
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- snow transforms our woodsy backyard from depressing into gorgeous
