WFMW - healthy eating

Every week I think, "I should participate in Works for Me Wednesday - it is such a good idea!" Only I can't ever think of anything interesting that works for me. ;) But healthy eating...this I can do! So here is one of my newest favorites:

“Cream” of Broccoli Soup
Original recipe from allrecipes.com – I tweaked it a bit to make it better.


4 cups water
4 cups broccoli florets
2 T butter
1 onion, chopped
1 large stalk celery, chopped
1/3 c. flour
2 T. chicken broth base
2 ½ c. milk (I used 1% and it was great – I bet skim would work as well.)
¼ t. nutmeg
¼ t. pepper
1 c. shredded cheddar

In a medium-sized cooking pot, add water and broccoli florets and bring to boil; reduce heat and cook for about 3 minutes. Drain, reserving the water.

In a blender, blend half the cooked broccoli until fairly smooth (you may want to add some of your reserved water to help it blend well.) Chop remaining broccoli and set aside.

In a large cooking pot, melt butter, add onion and celery and cook for about 3-4 minutes until soft. Stir in flour; cook, stirring constantly for about 1-2 minutes. Add reserved water and chicken broth base and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium; simmer, stirring constantly until thickened.

Unless you like little chunks in your cream soup (in which case, skip this step) transfer the soup to the blender and blend until smooth.

Return soup and blended broccoli to pot. Stir in milk, nutmeg, pepper, and chopped broccoli, and heat through. Just before serving, stir in grated cheddar.

Garnish with a little more cheddar, if desired.

The soup isn’t particularly thick the first day – it thickens overnight in the fridge, though. If you like your cream soup thicker, you can either make it in advance and serve reheated the next day (very good – we loved the leftovers) or you could try adding more flour or cornstarch to thicken the base.

The lovely thing about this soup is that it tastes really, really, really good, and just about as "creamy" as the not-so-good-for-you versions. It was a hit with both Gabe and Jonathan - hurray for yummy ways to feed the menfolk broccoli! :)