Creamy Broccoli and Spinach Soup

The ice is melting. Thank God! We are so over winter. This past weekend was warm enough to walk outside in a light jacket and no hat (ok, I did start out wearing gloves, but took them off). The ground is defrosting and the air smelled like my childhood spring; do you remember that wet mud, musty smell? I don’t know about other ladies in our hemisphere but I’ve stopped wearing socks! There I said it. My poor dogs are so sick of being all locked up and claustrophobic in socks and boots that they needed to be liberated! Yes, they may still get a bit chilled at times, but I don’t care! I’m done. And sadly the start of this week is back down to 2C (xxF) so this soup post is not entirely outside of expectation even though it was made about a month ago.
This soup was a last minute St. Paddy’s Day effort to make something green for dinner and I dare say it turned out even better than expected, so here it is on the blog for posterity and for me so I remember to make it again (it was that good)! It’s so creamy and smooth you’d never guess there is no cream in it!

The smooth creamy texture makes you think it’s much more sinful than it is!

It’s a nice thick vegetable soup without cream or any type of starch in it. The beautiful green colour comes from purée-ing raw baby spinach leaves into the warm broccoli soup and blitzing it for about two to three minutes to get the creamy consistency you see, I didn’t even push it through a fine sieve. There is no butter nor cream but you can add a pinch if you’d like.

The garnish is oven dried baby spinach leaves which I was hoping to make into a post on their own, but alas they were far too delicate and did not make the test! But they do make a gorgeous garnish, n’est pas?

Broccoli and Spinach Soup

Serves 2-4

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch broccoli florets, including stems
• 1 Vidalia onion, roughly chopped
• 6-8 medium cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 3-4 cups water or stock
• salt and white pepper to taste
• 2 handfuls of baby spinach leaves, raw

Directions:

1. Sauté the onion and garlic in a quick spray of non-stock or olive oil, adding water as needed until they are translucent. Add the broccoli florets and stems and cook stirring often until they are very tender. Add a couple of cups of water or stock and simmer for about 15 minutes.
2. Pour contents into a heat proof beaker and purée using your immersion blender (or you may do this step in a regular glass blender). Purée for a minute or so and then  add the raw baby spinach and purée for another 2-3 minutes until very smooth. Salt and pepper to taste. Add more water or stock if you feel it’s too thick.
3. Serve warm garnished with dried spinach leaves*.

Notes:

• To oven dry spinach leaves: Pre-heat the oven to the lowest temperature, mine is 170°F. Take the largest leaves from the package of baby spinach and lay over a dry cooling rack making sure they do not overlap. Place in the warm oven and watch for 15-20 minutes until they are completely dry and crispy. This would also work wonderfully with basil leaves. This is a great alternative to deep frying them.

The bright green colour is attributed to the raw spinach that’s been puréed into the cooked broccoli soup. Do you think I have a thing for green?

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Fall Split Pea Soup with Ham

Hi everyone, a quick update. Our hydro was restored sometime in the middle of the second night but we had already booked into a hotel not far from home. There is something so depressing about darkness, pitch darkness — not being able to find things and tripping over things, plus we wanted a warm bed and a hot shower! (Even though the house is gas heated and we have an on demand hot water domestic and heating system, the pumps are electrically operated, so there was no heat nor hot water!) I guess we could have put the fireplace on and bundled up, but not being able to shower or even eat (didn’t want to open the fridge). My biggest fear was the chest freezer in the basement but fortunately we are in great shape, there were no signs of defrosting at all. The refrigerator freezer didn’t fare so well, nor did the fridge. I suspect that when the power went off, the compressor had a lot of residual heat in it that just dissipated up (as heat rises) into the freezer and the fridge. So we had to toss a lot of stuff. But I remind myself that we were lucky, much luckier than our poor brothers and sisters to the south and east. They’ve lost more than a few shrimp and scallops! Thanks for your kind word of encouragement, we’re all good now. Now back to regular programming.

Today was a rainy, windy and chilly day. In fact, it rained all day. So uninspiring but we needed dinner tonight and lunches for the next day, so back into the kitchen I went and prepared what turned out to be a real winner: Fall Split Pea Soup with Ham.

A hearty and flavourful soup for a chilly, rainy day

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

• 175 g finely chopped onion
• 175 g cubed cooked ham
• 50 g pancetta, cut into small slices
• 20 g garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 2 cups green and yellow split peas
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 5-8 cm (2-3″) cinnamon stick
• 3 cups water
• 4 cups low sodium chicken stock

Directions:

1. In a pressure cooker cook the pancetta until crispy then add the onions and until translucent.
2. Add the split peas and sautée for a minute.
3. Add the garlic and cumin and sautée for about 30 more seconds (or until you can smell the aroma), add the ham, water and stock. Now add the paprika and cinnamon stick.
4. Seal the cover and cook under pressure for 45 minutes or until the split peas have softened (I use a fairly low setting). You should check the water level twice during the process to make sure it hasn’t boiled down to nothing, stir. If the liquid is too reduced, add more.
5. Serve with a dollop of low fat Greek yogurt and home made bread.

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