The Experiments Continue

Hey, wanna guess what THIS is?

Come on, I bet you can't guess. I bet you have NO IDEA.

If you guessed dog puke (or people puke, for that matter), you are wrong.

It is soup. Broccoli Cheese Soup to be exact.

I decided this season to be a bit more adventurous with soups. My old standards, which are all pretty darn good, are: Maryland Crab Soup, Beef Vegetable Soup, Chicken Corn Soup (that's a PA Dutch thing) and, occasionally, Bean Soup.

Recently, I have tried French Onion Soup (the recipe in the Joy of Cooking Cookbook makes DELICIOUS soup), Cream of Crab Soup and now Broccoli Cheese Soup (a copycat recipe I found online for Panera Broccoli Cheese Soup).

Here's a shot of the Broccoli Cheese Soup in the pot.

And here it is in our giant soup mugs. I served it with toasted rosemary focaccia bread. Oh. My. God. The soup is good. With the bread it was tres magnifique, which I think means really damn good. The recipe is here.

Speaking of recipes, I forgot to share the link for that Cream of Crab Soup recipe that I tested. It is really, really, really good. And super easy to make.

According to my mother-in-law, it is "to die for." If you make it, go ahead and use the cheaper crab from Indonesia or China or wherever the "blue swimming crab" comes from. The more-expensive meat from blue crabs should be reserved for crab cakes. In my opinion.

I just remembered that I took pictures of the French Onion Soup the last time I made it. The recipe called for Gruyere cheese, but I used Asiago and it was delish. It takes almost two hours to make this soup, but it is so worth it. Someone else transcribed the recipe for their blog, so here's a link for you. I usually use more than 3 tbsp of cheese and I put the bowls under the broiler to melt the cheese. So make sure you use oven-proof bowls!

I'm going to have to get more creative. All of my soup pix are starting to look alike!

Here's my (New England) clam chowder post from 2008. It shows cooked blue crabs, too. And a pissed-off cat. That recipe from the Joy of Cooking was time-consuming, but so good.

I keep threatening to make the clam chowder again. Hubby doesn't like clams, but this chowder is extraordinary, so maybe I can convert him. I'll let you know if I am successful.