Broccoli Cheese Soup - Fast!

I love good soup. It makes me happy. Sometimes, Campbell's hits the spot, partly because it is nostalgic, and partly because it is brainlessly easy! Sometimes, however, I really want a good soup. Soup with lots of fresh ingredients, that has been simmered and stirred into yumminess. But I want it fast. How do I accomplish that? By cooking giant batches of soup and freezing them. Then I can have great soup super fast. I do French Onion Soup, which I freeze in individual containers because I'm the only one who likes it. I do Chicken Tortilla soup which is wonderful. I found a great recipe for Chicken and Wild Rice soup, too. But this week I tried a recipe that I have been wanting to try for weeks. The recipe is from the book Don't Panic, Dinner's in the Freezer by Susie Martinez, Vanda Howell an Bonnie Garcia. As you can see from the picture above, I shamelessly photocopied the recipe out of the library copy. However, there are a lot of great recipes and it might be worth finally buying it (the French Onion soup recipe and Chicken and Wild Rice recipe are from this cookbook also).

The recipe I tried this week is for Broccoli Cheese Soup. I love broccoli cheese soup and I order it whenever I get the chance. Quiznos has a pretty good version that I order sometimes. This recipe is very similar and everyone in my family ate it!! Even Tali, my vegetarian! I made a single batch on Monday and made a triple batch for the freezer on Friday. So I have three nights of Broccoli Cheese soup for dinner, waiting in my freezer - YUM!


Broccoli Cheese Soup

Combine in a large pot and bring to a boil:

1 cup carrot, finely chopped
1/4 cup celery, finely chopped
1/4 cup onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup green pepper, finely chopped
1/2 cup fresh broccoli, cut in small pieces
1 3/4 cups chicken broth

Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

Combine in a bowl:

2 cups milk
1/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt

Add the milk mixture to the vegetable mixture and cook until thick and bubbly.

Add to the pot:

4 oz. Velveeta cheese
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 c. shredded provolone cheese

Stir until cheese is melted, but don't boil. Freeze in large gallon bag. On serving day, heat until warm but don't boil.

• NOTES: Ok, I never make a recipe as listed and as I was typing this I realized I changed this one a lot!
• When I was making it, I didn't think I wanted the veggies to be chunky so I pureed the vegetables after they were cooked and added them back to the broth. We liked it better smooth.
• I left out the green pepper, no one here will eat it.
• I added additional broccoli, this is, after all, Broccoli Cheese soup, I thought there should be at least as much broccoli as carrots.
• I upped the amount of chicken broth, only because I was worried about there being enough for my family. I upped the amount of flour to compensate.
• I left out the provolone cheese because it was expensive and I couldn't bring myself to spend $7.00 on cheese!
• So, my final version wasn't actually very much like the original, was it?? Oh well, it was good anyway!

Jill