{"id":4020,"date":"2015-10-12T14:52:08","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T20:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/?p=4020"},"modified":"2016-11-04T12:39:13","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T10:39:13","slug":"how-to-get-rid-of-extra-veggies-and-i-might-have-too-much-cheese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/how-to-get-rid-of-extra-veggies-and-i-might-have-too-much-cheese\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Get Rid of Extra Veggies (and I might have too much cheese!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m leaving for Mexico next Friday<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I’ve been doing very well at eating down my stores, but somehow found myself with a giant bag of broccoli and a huge package of cheese that I’m not sure I can get through. Mark this day in your calendar, that I have cheese I don’t know what to do with! \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

Last week, I bought a whole pre-roasted chicken and turned the carcass into stock. I had planned to make chicken soup from the stock, but then realised that I had the perfect base for cheddar broccoli soup! I don’t normally advocate drinking your calories, but, really, a vegetable potage is the easiest way to offload tons of veggies without making it feel like a chore.<\/p>\n

Stock day was Saturday, a surprisingly hot afternoon\u00a0that was not ideal for simmering a chicken carcass on the stove for hours. But the hot work paid off and I was left, after some time in the fridge, with a bowl of very flavourful chicken Jell-o.<\/p>\n

Normally, I wouldn’t use a recipe for something like this, but I’ve been craving Panera’s cheddar broccoli soup, so I looked for a copycat recipe and, based on the comments, picked the one at Averie Cooks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I got to work on the broccoli soup this morning, starting by microwaving my broth to make sure it would liquify properly (yes).<\/p>\n

After saut\u00e9ing the onions and garlic, I set to work on the roux that would serve as the thickening agent for the soup. This was probably the most lovely roux of my life, silky smooth and without a lump in sight.<\/p>\n

\"IMGP2466\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And this was even with the half broken whisk I was working with. I am well overdue for a new whisk!<\/p>\n

\"IMGP2468\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I didn’t have any cream on hand, so I used unsweetened plain almond milk, which worked beautifully. I didn’t have all the spices recommended in the recipe, so I just added salt, pepper, and the dried mustard.<\/p>\n

Once the soup base was quite thick (since the frozen broccoli would add lots of liquid), I added the veggies. I had an extra piece of celery left from my scrapped plans to make chicken soup, so it went in the pot, too.<\/p>\n

\"IMGP2470\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To further thicken the soup and better distribute the veggies, I pur\u00e9ed about half of the soup before adding the cheese. Then I gently stirred in some Cracker Barrel extra sharp cheddar (Cracker Barrel? I must have gotten one heck of a deal because I always buy Co-Op!).<\/p>\n

And tah-dah:<\/p>\n

\"IMGP2471\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Verdict? Better than Panera. And I’m pretty sure I have my stock to thank for it!<\/p>\n

I’ll be eating this for the next few days!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m leaving for Mexico next Friday. I’ve been doing very well at eating down my stores, but somehow found myself with a giant bag of broccoli and a huge package of cheese that I’m not sure I can get through. Mark this day in your calendar, that I have cheese I don’t know what to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[632,4,6,635,807,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canada","category-haven","category-homemaking","category-north-america","category-saskatchewan","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}