The No Cream of Asparagus Soup

What is "No Cream of Asparagus Soup?" It is a creamy delight of asparagus soup that is minus cream!

Yes, another soup! Honestly...the soup season is almost over. So, one last (maybe) soup behind the cut. I found a recipe on VegCooking, but I altered it so much I am going to just give you my version.

The ingredients:


No Cream of Asparagus Soup:

• 2 lbs fresh asparagus, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 1 medium onion, chopped
  
• 1/2 cup celery, chopped
• 1 Tbs olive oil
  
• 1 large potato, peeled, thinly sliced
• 3 tsp fresh thyme
• 32 ounce box vegetable stock
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup soy milk
  

In a stock pot, heat the olive oil and add the asparagus, onion and celery and saute until slightly soft:

Peel and thinly slice the potato. Also, you can see some asparagus peelings there, I peeled the thicker parts of the stems because it was huge asparagus. The big woody stems are stringy and tough unless you peel them:


Add the potato slices and the thyme and vegetable stock to the pot and simmer with the lid on for about 30 minutes. The addition of the potato adds starch that will help make this soup creamy.


It will end up looking like this:



Use your immersion blender to puree the soup, or do so in batches in a regular blender. Add the soy milk and salt and pepper. It has this consistency:


Crusty bread and a bowl for the soup (I garnished mine with several asparagus heads that I steamed in a tad of water in the microwave for 15 seconds) and you are ready.


Can you tell I adore soups? Yes? Good...I hope you do too! Join me as I dine...

Paula

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Cauliflower Leek Soup...The "Not Potato" Leek Soup

I love soup...really, I just love it. I was at the grocery store recently and they had some really beautiful leeks. So, immediately I thought of Potato Leek soup. Yum. The problem? Byron and I gave up potatoes, except for special occasions.

I got the brilliant idea (which I thought was so innovative) to substitute cauliflower for the potato. I was going to be a trail blazer in a new food combination of delicious low carbness. Not. When I googled cauliflower leek soup, there were pages of recipes. Oh well, I made it anyway.




Cauliflower Leek Soup, the "not potato" leek soup...awaits behind the cut.

Speaking of behind the cut...I owe a long overdue thanks to my friend, Sarah from Seattle. Without her help, I never would have been able to get cuts on this blog. Besides that, she is the inspiration for ideas for upcoming meals. Thank you, Sarah! You are truly made of awesome!

Here are the ingredients:




The recipe I used can be found here. It calls for the addition of heavy cream at the end. I opted out of that ingredient. Instead, I put a dollop of Boursin cheese and some chopped scallions as a garnish. By using the boursin as a garnish rather than cream as an ingredient in the soup, it allows you to control the amount you want...or gives guests the option of not having it at all. This recipe is so very easy and so very tasty.

This photograph illustrates why it is very important to wash leeks well:


Leeks are grown in very sandy soil, so as the leek emerges from the earth, the grit they are grown in gets trapped in the layers of the leek. It's gross, but easily cured. You simply cut the leeks and put them in a deep bowl of water. Swish them around and pop them apart and the dirt and grit falls to the bottom of the bowl:



Heat the olive oil and butter in a large pot over medium heat. Saute the leeks, cauliflower and garlic for about 10 minutes. This time, I used my garlic press. You can see, it is beat up. Just like the reviewer in that link to the Susi Garlic Press, mine is 20 years old and never fails to work beautifully. If you hate chopping garlic, get one.


The colors of these ingredients as they saute are just stunning. As I was at this point in the cooking, I found myself pulling a Rachael Ray, exclaiming to myself how wonderful it smelled...and how I wished you could get *smell-o-computer*:


After the ingredients in the pan soften a bit, you add the vegetable stock:


Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 45 minutes. When the time is up, it looks like this:


With an immersion blender (or in batches in a regular blender), puree the soup:


Add salt and black pepper to taste:


Stir it in and you have a soup that is this consistency:


It has a wonderful creaminess that is not quite the same as potato, but wonderful nonetheless.

Heat up some crusty bread, set the table and you are ready!



Soup's on! Join me as I dine!

Paula

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Chicken Piccata with Lemon, Capers and Artichoke Hearts...An Early Taste of Spring

It's still winter, but spring must be near! My taste buds are telling me it is so! I got a hankering for something a bit more spring like, so I made Chicken Piccata with Lemon, Capers and Artichoke Hearts.


The recipe served this over rice and lima beans, but I paired the chicken with some lightly sauteed zucchini and grape tomatoes. It's easy, elegant and it was delicious.

The ingredients are here:


The recipe calls for 4 chicken breasts but these were Dolly Parton sized, so I just used two. The first step is to flatten them. I have an old, old, old meat mallet that is horrible, so I just used my (yes pink...it was a gift from a friend) silicone rolling pin. If you don't have a meat mallet or a rolling pin, just smash the chicken with a heavy pan. Just about anything heavy will work. Putting the chicken in a zip lock bag makes for easy clean up and the bag comes in handy later.

Once the chicken is 1/4 inch thick, it looked like this:


The recipe called for the chicken to be salted and peppered and then coated in the seasoned flour, but I just dumped the salt and pepper right in there with the flour.


There is also lemon zest in this recipe; the zest of lemon holds the essential oils and is very fragrant and wonderful. Zest is just the finely grated rind. I use a micro plane to zest, but I have zesting tools too. You can use a very fine cheese grater or a sharp paring knife. When you zest you only want to get the top colored layer, not into the white pith, which is bitter. You can buy dried zest, but it's not the same as fresh.


All of the spices and the flour and lemon zest are added into the plastic bag with the chicken and tossed together to coat the chicken well. Heat the oil in a skillet and add the floured chicken (just shake it off a bit first). Saute it for a few minutes on each side until it is golden brown and cooked through.


Once the chicken is browned on each side, add the lemon juice, wine and stock.

That will simmer until the sauce thickens from the flour that has coated the chicken. While that is happening, slice up some zucchini and toss it in a skillet with 2 tsp olive oil, a pinch of garlic powder and salt/pepper. I also added a hint of the lemon zest. Normally fresh garlic is preferred but I was doing a super quick saute and it wasn't really enough time to sweeten the fresh garlic.


Now, both skillets are ready for the final ingredients. The chicken gets quartered artichoke hearts (I buy them quarted, so I don't have to cut them) and the capers. The zucchini gets some grape tomatoes that I halved.



Then, just plate it and serve.


Spring is coming! Join me as I dine!

Paula

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