Crockpot Soup with Potatoes and Roasted Cauliflower

It's weird how some days I can spend so much time cooking, and other days I have no time at all and want something quick. We have pizza once a week just because, but the other six nights its something homemade, unless we get invited to someone elses place. If it's my brother CC, then we get some aged beef on the barbecue, and it's delicious! If it's at either of my daughters' place, we get a big green salad with something I probably made and brought over, like lasagna, because I don't want them have to go to any trouble or expense.

This vessel right here is my favorite cooking appliance

Made this the other night. Have about half leftover.

Anyway, today I am off work, and my husband is at work. Perfect day to clean house, right? Uh huh. So here I am, watching Hoda and Kathie Lee and blogging about food. I don't get another fresh vegetable box delivered from SLO Veg until Monday, so I am using what I have. A survey of the frig shows some leftover mashed potatoes, some butternut squash pasta (Taylor really loves it and will eat it today for his lunch, or breakfast, or brunch, or whatever you call it when someone wakes up and eats midday), and a half of a whole roasted cauliflower and three carrots. It was part a great fish and veggie dinner the other night, but just the hub and I were home, so there was a lot left. (Hardest part of meal planning is knowing for sure how many eaters I might have.) Hmmm...I could just throw the potatoes and the cauliflower into the crock pot and in three or four hours I will have Roasted Cauliflower and Potato soup, right? Right! 

I browse Pinterest for a few recipes and decide I am right on track. There a dozens of pins for cauliflower soup which must be all the rage right now. Most are substituting cauliflower for potatoes in hopes of have a slightly more healthy cream soup. But after talking with a dietician this week, my hub (who has been advised to monitor his blood sugar levels) and I learned that a carb is a carb is a carb. Blood sugars fluctuate more from carbs than anything else. Portion size is the key. A small potato is one carb serving. A giant potato equal three or four carb servings. One carbohydrate serving equals 15 grams of carbohydrates. She said everyone is different, so some people may tolerate one source of carbs better than the next person. She said just count your carbs--four servings allowed per meal, one for snacks. Beer counts as carbs. And cheese is a protein. Done. That was easy.

Literally just threw it all in the crock pot

So, back to the soup, where I have a big head start in using leftover roasted vegetables. I dumped in the container of potatoes, the half head of cauliflower, the three roasted carrots, some chopped red onion and two cloves of mashed garlic. Then I added two cups of chicken broth that I had stashed in the freezer. After looking at some other recipes, I might add some Dijon mustard and hot sauce for a little spike. I will blend it together with an immersion blender and stir in some shredded cheese until it all melts. I have some in the frig that is a mix of cheddar and Monterey jack cheese. I checked out my plastic storage containers, which all have measurements listed on them. The potato container is four cups. There is about 2 cups worth of cauliflower there. One half cup of cooked vegetables counts as one carb, so it all depends of how many cups of soup we consume. Two cups of soup is the whole meal, or one and a half cups of soup plus one beer. Its interchangeable. That's it. Soups on!

My soup was kind of chunky, but you can use an immersion blender to smooth it out if you like.

Here is the recipe I modeled from Aris Menu:

Roasted Cauliflower Soup 
http://arismenu.com/roasted-cauliflower-soup/

Ingredients

• 1 large head of cauliflower, chopped into small florets
• 4 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 4 tbsp olive oil, divided
• salt and pepper
• 1 large red onion, finely chopped
• 4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
• 3 cups mashed potatoes
• 1 tbsp turmeric
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 tbsp honey dijon mustard 
• 3-4 dashes of your favorite hot sauce (I used McClintocks)
• 1 1/2 cups freshly grated cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese
• 
  

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400. Add cauliflower and garlic to a very large baking dish. Drizzle with 1-2 tablespoons olive oil and season with a generous pinch each of salt and pepper. Bake until browned and softened, about 30 minutes.
2. In a large pot, heat 1-2 tbsp olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and season with a pinch each of salt and pepper. Cook until tender and fragrant, about 7 minutes.
3. Add broth. Increase heat to high and bring to a boil. Stir in mashed potatoes.
4. Add cooked cauliflower and garlic scraping baking dish well into the pot. Add turmeric and curry powder, salt and pepper. Add mustard and hot sauce.
5. Puree using an immersion blender, high quality stand blender (will likely need to do in batches), or food processor (will also likely require multiple batches. Return to heat and stir in cheese. Add extra salt and pepper if desired. Serve immediately. Leftovers may be stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to one week

Note: When Lee checked his blood sugar  2 hours after dinner, it was high. I might make this soup again without all the potatoes and see what the results will be.

3 or 4 Cheese-Broccoli Soup

Night shift is going to be the end of me. I'm lying here awake, listening to the sounds of the construction going on outside on my street. I could conceivably get three more hours of sleep before I have to wake up and get ready for work tonight, but seriously, the house keep shaking. I know they're going to be done with this phase of the construction just as I switch back to day shift. 

So instead I am browsing the internet looking at recipes and trying to figure out how to use up the rest of this week's vegetables before our next delivery. Pioneer Woman had a delicious looking cheesy broccoli soup on her website today. I have broccoli and I have cheese -- an odd assortment, to be sure, but it's cheese. I think I have a few slices of pepper jack, a handful of shredded Parmesan, and about a cup of shredded mozzarella. I can make a three-cheese soup. Toss in two small heads of broccoli and that should do it!

I loosely followed Pioneer Woman's recipe, sauting the onion in butter, but I added some chopped bacon and celery. Then I mixed in the flour, the nutmeg, the salt and pepper and about a cup of water. I was going to also use cream, but the date on the carton said August 20th and I figured I'm well past August 20th. I also hope the combination of water and milk would make my soup a little lighter, because I really don't need the extra fat.

II added two heads of broken up broccoli to the pot and let it all simmer for about 20 minutes. Then I took out my handy dandy little immersion blender and pureed the soup. At that point I added in the cheeses, stirring until it was melted. The soup look pretty pale this point with all those white cheeses, so I improvised and robbed a box of mac and cheese of its little packet of powdered cheddar. I stirred that into the soup and -- Presto! It melted right in and made the soup have a nice golden glow. Note: now it's a four-cheese soup.

Now that I eaten my soup and told you the story, I'm going back to sleep for at least another hour, if it kills me!

Bean n Bacon Soup

We had a late lunch in town today, so I wasn't even sure if I wanted to make dinner tonight. 

I had some chicken thighs defrosted already, but I just didn't feel like preparing a whole meal now. I really wanted something simple, lighter and comforting...soup!

At first I thought of making corn chowder using the few ears of corn leftover from our 4th of July barbecue. Then, upon inspecting the contents of the frig, I spied the baked beans. I knew I had two or three strips of bacon left so I thought "bean and bacon soup!" I would add corn to that. Brilliant. 

So I chopped up a bit of onion, about a quarter cup, and sauteed it with the diced bacon in a stockpot. I added a quarter cube of butter, Paula Deen-style. Then I made a roux by adding a small scoop of flour to the pot, along with about a cup of water and a teaspoon of organic chicken broth powder in lieu of broth. When that thickened, I added a little more water, then stirred in the leftover beans, which amounted to about two cups worth, and about a cup of corn that I had cut off the cob.

I tasted the soup and decided it needed some punch, so I added a splash each of Worchestershire sauce and white vinegar vinegar and a generous dollop of ketchup. Still not completely satisfied, I opened a 15 oz. can of diced tomatoes and poured it in. Garlic salt, pepper and oregano flakes finished off the seasoning and the soup was ready. It turned out to be pretty tasty!