Creamy Potato Broccoli Soup

I enjoy cooking.  I do sometimes get in a cooking funk though.   I have a rather large repertoire of "regulars" with beef, chicken, tuna, beans, and soups, but I like variety when it comes to food.  The other night, I was tryinig to decide what to fix.  I wanted something yummy, nutritious, vegetarian, and something that used a few ingredients that I had on hand and wanted to use.  I grew a lot of potatoes last summer and at this point, I have a lot of "sprouting" potatoes!  Plus I had some chicken broth in the fridge I wanted to use (ok, almost vegetarian), and Aaron had a special request for something with fiber for dinner.  So here's what I came up with.

I started by chopping up 5 cups of UNPEELED white potatoes and 2 cups of UNPEELED sweet potatoes.  (I avoid peeling at all cost.  I'm a lazy cook.)  I put them in the pressure cooker and cooked them for 3 minutes.  While those cooked, I put a healthy amount of olive oil in my cast iron skillet and sauteed some onions and garlic.  I got a good caramelization goin' on there. (It smelled SOOO good.)


While the potatoes were cooking and the onions were caramelizing, I opened a can of northern beans, drained them, put them in a 5 quart pot, and mashed them with a potato masher.  As soon as the potatoes finished, I put them in my food processor with 12 ounces of frozen broccoli.  (note: let it partially thaw first.  My food processor did NOT appreciate having to chop frozen broccoli. In fact, the broccoli kept getting stuck on the blade and making the blade come off in the container!!) I had about 1 cup of chicken broth that I poured a small amount into each batch I put in the food processor.  This thinned it out just enough to puree evenly.

 

I dumped the potato/broccoli mixture in with the beans and stirred it together. I added 1 1/2 cups of raw cream and 2 cups of raw milk. I added a dash of pepper and paprika (I think....this is why you should write down recipes immediately and not wait a week and try to remember what you did!) Believe it or not, I still have some parsley hanging on in the garden, so I took a big handful of fresh parsley, chopped it and added it in. I didn't puree the onions and garlic. I added them in to the soup as they were after I sauteed them and I think that was a great idea. The flavor and texture were really good!

Last but not least, I stirred in at least a cup of shredded cheddar cheese. It was probably more like 1 1/2 cups. We love cheese. I heated the soup until just hot; not long enough to bring it to a boil.

I saved just a tad of the parsley and cheese to garnish the bowls. It was soo good and soo filling. I was going to make some homemade bread or biscuits to go with it, but ran out of time, so I just served it was saltines. It was DELISH with saltines. Couldn't have been better with whole wheat biscuits, so I'm glad I didn't go to the trouble. :)

Here's the recipe in easy to read format:

Creamy Potato Broccoli Soup

4-5 cups unpeeled potatoes, chopped
2 cups unpeeled sweet potatoes, chopped
1 whole onion, chopped
3 or 4 cloves garlic, chopped
12-16 oz broccoli, frozen or fresh
1 can northern beans, drained
1 cup water or chicken broth
1 1/2 c. raw cream
2 cups raw milk
1/2 t. pepper
1/2 t. paprika
1/4 cup fresh parsley or couple tablespoons dry
1-1 1/2 c. shredded cheddar cheese

Cook and puree potatoes. Saute onions and garlic. Do not puree. Puree potatoes, broccoli and beans with chicken broth to thin them down. Stir together with remaining ingredients and heat through.