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I’m a purist. When I hear the words “Broccoli & Cheddar Soup”, I think of lovely little broccoli florets swimming in a sea of creamy cheese soup. I don’t need much else in there. Sure, I like a little seasoning, some roux to thicken and a dash of colour when served, but I don’t need anything else. I hate to see peppers or potatoes, kale or other such foreign things. I don’t mean to be rude, if that’s your thing than, well, that’s your thing. I just prefer to taste the headliners in this wonderfully monikered amalgamation.
Lately, in the Guilty Kitchen, there’s been a need for more simple fare. I have less time to spend in the kitchen as of late, and I certainly don’t want to be spending the whole afternoon stirring, mixing or sautéeing. What is that’s creating such an upheaval in our humble home? Well, you’ll have to stick around for a little while. Announcements are meant to be long and drawn out, right? At least that’s what reality television has taught me!
You’ll find out soon enough, as long as you stick around.
Broccoli & Cheddar Soup
3 Tbsp butter
3 Large heads of Broccoli (divided into stems and florets)
1 small onion
1 clove garlic, grated or minced
900mL low sodium chicken broth
1 cup whole milk, warm
3 heaping Tbsp all purpose flour
3 Tbsp butter
2-3 cups sharp cheddar, grated
1/2 tsp mustard powder
2 dashes tabasco
1/4 tsp paprika
salt & pepper
1. Dice onion and peeled broccoli stems very fine and add to a large soup pot.
2. Add 3 Tbsp butter to pot and sauté on medium heat until softened, about 6-8 minutes.
3. Add in garlic and sauté for another 2-3 minutes.
4. Add broth, turn up heat and allow to come to a simmer. Turn down to medium low and continue to simmer.
5. Meanwhile, in small saucepan oven medium heat, melt other 3 Tbsp of butter. Sprinkle flour over melted butter and stir to form a roux.
6. Slowly add heated milk to roux, whisking as you go. Bring to a simmer and allow to thicken. On a slow simmer, with constant stirring, you can cook this cream sauce for up to 20 minutes. Season with salt & pepper.
7. Add cream sauce to broth, whisking to combine.
8. Add grated cheese and make sure it is completely incorporated before adding broccoli florets. You can add the seasonings at this point (mustard powder, Tabasco and paprika)
9. Add in broccoli florets and allow to simmer for an additional 15-20 minutes, or until broccoli is tender. Season with salt and pepper.
10. Thicken with a 1:1 ratio of cornstarch and water if the consistency is not thick enough for you.
Unfortunately, this soup doesn’t save so well. The broccoli tends to become more strongly scented as time goes on, and not in a good way, more like a strong cabbage. Those cruciferous vegetables are notorious for just that. It is good the next day, but I wouldn’t recommend freezing it or saving it for more than 24 hours. Also, the broccoli will change colour as well, becoming a more greyish green as time goes on. It’s still fine to eat, just less visually appealing.
This is a recipe that’s been locked up in the vault for a while. I’m not sure why it was never posted, something about not perfect pictures, probably, but I’m glad it’s here now. I am a huge fan of squash season, and making soups out of these luscious gourds is one of my favourite things to do with them. There’s just something about squash that screams purée! It could be my history of making baby food for the wee one, what with all the squash and fruits I mashed up for his cute little tummy. But this soup is far from baby food. It is a much more sophisticated take on the same basic principle though. You take a squash, you roast it, you mash it up, add some flavour and voila!
I’d love to go on and on about how this soup embodies autumn in all it’s lovely, crisp weather glory, but I think I’ve done that a few times here in the past month or two. Instead I will just be clean and precise. This soup will take you less than 30 minutes to make (once the squash is roasted) so it is a fabulous meal for those nights when you have no time for cooking, but crave a home cooked, quality meal. Served with a side salad or a even just a crusty bun, this soup is savoury and satisfying with notes of sweet apples. Make it the next time you feel like cozying up to a loved one instead of slaving away over the stove all night.
Butternut Squash Soup
1 medium onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
2 small apples (like granny smith) peeled and cored, roughly cubed
1 Tbsp oil or butter
1 large butternut squash
3 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup beer (dark)
1/2 cup apple juice
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp sage
s & p
1. Heat oven to 375°F. Cut squash in half lengthwise, scoop out seeds. Rub oil on cut side and roast cut side up for 45-60 minutes or until soft. Remove from oven and scoop out flesh.
2. In large saucepan, sauté onion, apples** and celery in butter or oil until softened. Add squash and continue to sauté for 5 minutes. Deglaze with beer and apple juice.
3. Add chicken stock and other seasonings. Simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Purée in blender in small batches. Return to pot to reheat if necessary.
5. Serve with a swirl of cream.
** Alternatively, as a friend suggested, you can roast the apples inside the squash in the oven for extra roasted flavour.
Served with a swirl of buttermilk, creme fraiche, or sour cream, this soup delivers in the taste department. Don’t be shy with the seasonings either, the flavour of the squash can stand up to a lot.
The perfect brownie can be many things to many people, but i have only one request, there must obscene amounts of chocolate. Yes, it should be chewy, and dense and have somewhat crispy edges, but the chocolate factor is non-negotiable.
Seeking out and testing the perfect brownie is not for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of chutzpah to consume more cakey, chocolate goodness then is humanly necessary. One must be brave, strong willed and have impeccable tastes. There is not much leeway in my preferences for what a brownie should be.
And so we come to this recipe. Yes, I took the basic information from “The Baked Brownie”, but I found that recipe to be lacking in serious chocolate flavour. And so I tweaked a few things here and there, and bring you my version of perfection. Enjoy!
Perfect Brownies
inspired by “The Baked Brownie”
80 g all purpose flour, sifted
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp cocoa
6 oz dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids or more)
4 oz butter, cut into small pieces
1 tsp instant coffee
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
3 eggs, well beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1. Grease sides of an 8 x 8 baking pan.
2. In mixing bowl, combine flour, salt and cocoa.
3. In double boiler (or metal bowl resting on top of a saucepan of water), melt together the chocolate, butter and coffee.
4. Add sugars and remove from heat.
5. Add in eggs and vanilla, but do not over beat.
6. Sprinkle flour over chocolate mixture, folding gentle with a spatula. Again, to not over mix.
7. Pour into baking pan, bake 30 minutes (rotating halfway) or until edges are completely cooked and center is slightly underdone.
Breakfast for dinner. Whoever thought of such a wonderful concept has garnered my praise for years. Egss are extremely underrated in my opinion, if only for the fact that people have very limiting ideas of what to do with them. Toad in the Hole, scrambled, fried, sunny side up, boiled soft or hard, etc. There many wonderful things to do with eggs, the least of which is to serve them in a hurry at breakfast.
I find I enjoy eggs more for dinner because I savour them for a longer period of time. My husband and I, for economic reasons, used to have soft boiled eggs with toast soldiers as our Friday night dinner for a few months, about a year ago. We’d be exhausted from daily life with a 9 month old, the rigamorale of the day to day grind and just your basic personal upkeep of a household. It was almost my favourite meal of the week. 5 minutes to make (after the kid went to bed) and 10 minutes to savour one of my most favourite of childhood treats. There’s something very clean and simple about toast soldiers dripping in butter, being dipped into perfectly runny, golden yolks. From those hectic days, sprouted new found love for the humble egg.
I’ve always been more of a fritatta kind of girl, but I find the crustless factor and tendency to be a bit dry less appealing then the rather sexy, crust encased, quiche. Sexy? Quiche? Yes, that’s right. Eggs can indeed be sexy. When dressed up in lovely mushrooms, exotic soft cheeses and herb scented, flaky, all butter crusts, eggs can induce a certain amount of fervor in me.
Fully Loaded Quiche
For the Savory Crust
4 oz cold, unsalted butter
6 oz all purpose flour
1/2 tsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup fresh rosemary, minced fine
1/4 cup buttermilk
1. Cut into butter into 2 cm pieces and freeze for 10-15 minutes. Measure out buttermilk and refrigerate.
2. Sift flour, sugar and salt into bowl. Take cold butter and dump into flour, toss to coat.
3. Dump onto work area and roll butter pieces with rolling pin.
4. When all butter is flattened and it looks like a big shaggy mess, throw it back into the bowl and put it in the fridge for 10 minutes.
5. Remove from fridge, make a well and pour in buttermilk. Bring dough together with hands, making sure to moisten all of the flour. It will be a big shaggy mess.
6. Form into flat disc, wrap in plastic and put in fridge for 1 hour.
7. Preheat oven to 350°F.
8. Roll out dough on floured surface to about 12″ around.
9. Line a pie plate with dough, folding and crimping edges.
10. Line dough with parchment paper or tin foil and weigh down with dried beans, rice or baking weights.
11. Bake 15 minutes, remove weights and liner, dock dough with a fork and bake another 15-20 minutes more or until a light golden brown.
12. Remove from oven, set aside to cool. Meanwhile, make the filling.
For the Quiche Filling
1 recipe savory crust
2 Tbsp Butter, divided
1 large shallot, minced
1 large clove garlic, minced or grated
1 lb mushrooms, diced
6oz spinach, roughly chopped or torn
150-200g peameal bacon (if unavailable, try Canadian bacon)
150-200 g Brie, sliced
4 large eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup whole milk
salt & pepper
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried Greek oregano
1 large tomato, sliced
1. In large sauté pan on medium high heat, sauté bacon for 1-2 minutes per side, or until slightly browned. Set aside to cool, then chop into large pieces about 2cm x 2cm. Toss into a medium sized mixing bowl.
2. In same sauté pan, add 1 Tbsp butter, garlic, shallots and mushrooms. Sauté on medium high for 8-10 minutes, or until all liquid has been cooked out of the mushrooms.
3. Remove from pan and add to bowl with bacon in it.
4. In same pan (again), add 1 Tbsp of butter and sauté spinach until all liquid has been cooked out.
5. Toss in bowl with other ingredients and season with salt and pepper.
6. In separate bowl, mix eggs with buttermilk and whole milk. Season with salt, pepper, basil and oregano.
7. Line crust with half of Brie. Pour in the vegetables, then the egg. Top with slices of tomato and remaining Brie.
8. Bake in 350°F oven for 35-45 minutes or until center is just set.
9. Allow to cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes prior to cutting into it.
This quiche is excellent heated up the next day in the oven for 10-15 minutes. It’s quite large, so there were a few pieces left over, though they only lasted a day. Very, very good flavours.
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