I was super excited when this challenge came up. I love to cook! Since it's summer, my first thoughts were of cold treats, quick dinners so the kitchen doesn’t heat up the house and various other yummy, hot-weather thoughts. But, since I live in an often cool and cloudy part of the world, I made a batch of warm and hearty potato and vegetable chowder!
I looked at several definitions of soup and stew terms and think this recipe is closest to a chowder, but I'm open to suggestions! I made up this recipe all by myself about 5 years ago, I think, and it was my first success at doing so
I’d never written down what amounts of everything to use, but now I have! It's good now that I don't have to rely on memory
3 Yukon gold potatoes (they were a little bigger than my fist closed loosely. You can use russets or whatever too. This isn’t rocket science
)
5 celery ribs
1/2 of a sweet onion (yellow or white is good too)
water
1 head broccoli
1 1/2 cups milk (I used 2%)
1/4 cup flour
1/8 teaspoon paprika
salt
pepper
Wash, peel and dice (as needed) the first 3 ingredients.
Put them in a medium-sized pot and fill with just enough water to cover them. Stick it on the stove and boil until you can easily stab and break apart the potatoes with a fork. From starting to wash to this point took about 40 minutes for me.
Place a colander over a bowl. Pour veggies into the colander so the liquid drains into the bowl. That liquid is veggie broth, baby! Liquid gold in my book.
Put the veggies in a big pot and give them a once-over with a potato masher. There should be whole dices left but mostly broken up or mashed.
Pour 1 1/2 cups veggie broth back in with the veggies plus 1 1/2 cups milk. Sift the 1/4 cup flour and 1/8 teaspoon paprika over this and stir in so clumps don’t form (if they do, mash them). Put it on the stove over medium-low heat. The mashing and flour will thicken the soup!
Wash the broccoli- Don’t dry! -and cut the flowers off into a bowl. Cover it with a paper towel and steam it in the microwave. I used the “cook soft veggies” setting on mine.
Do you like the sign?
Stir the soup frequently, mashing the veggies a bit more with the back of the spoon every once in a while if you want. Also every once in a while take out a spoonful and blow on it. Does it part where you blow then slowly come together again? Once it does and you feel like Moses parting the Red Sea, stir in the steamed broccoli and remove from heat.
Now dish it up! Salt and pepper to taste and enjoy!
This is great reheated; I think even better. And, as you may guessed from the title, from start to finish this soup only takes about 60 minutes! Bon appetit!
