Broccoli Soup

Last month we visited New Hampshire to see the Fall Colors. Oh Boy! It was freezing cold and all we had were our fall jackets. Not much use but something was better than nothing. Yeah that is when I felt like having hot sambar vadai's and pepper rasam. (If you are wondering if I am drooling as I write this, then you guessed it right.) We headed to Subway (I am a big fan) to eat the buns and veggies only to find about 30 other Indians standing in the line before us. With the number of Indian's visiting that place I was surprised that there were no Indian restaurants. With the temperatures soaring down, weathers getting cooler there is nothing better than sipping on nice hot/warm soup.

The temperature as I write this post is 39 F i.e. 3.88 C. Thanks to Google I do not have to calculate using the 5/9 formula or maybe it is 9/5. Oh my God! How dependent I have become on Google that I do not know the basic formula itself. Coming back to the main part of this post. With only broccoli in hand, I decided to make it into a soup which I would say turned out to be good enough to be slurped down completely in 5 minutes. Here we go with the recipe:

Ingredients

Broccoli - 1.5 cup (chopped into florets)

Milk - 2 cups (I used 2%. If you want to make it low fat then milk - 1 cup and water - 1 cup)

Water - 1 cup

Flour - 1 tbsp

Onion - 1 (chopped finely)

Salt - as per taste

Cheese - 2 tbsp (I used reduced fat cheese)

Oil - 1 tbsp

Preparation

Heat oil. Add onion and fry till it is translucent. Add flour and mix thoroughly ensuring that it does not stick to the bottom of the vessel. Add milk and mix well. Allow it to simmer for 5 minutes. The mixture would have thickened by now. Add broccoli florets and water. Mix well. If you still find the mixture to be too thick you can add some more water. Add salt. Allow it to simmer till the broccoli is cooked well. Add cheese and mix well. Transfer to soup bowls. Broccoli soup is ready and yummy!

Note: Once the broccoli florets are cooked you can blend the entire mixture thoroughly to get a smooth creamy texture. If you are like me and like the pieces floating around skip the blending part.

~ Ramya