creamy broccoli soup

Fall is for soup and baking and blankets and slippers.  The boys and I went to the park with my mom and my grandmother for a few hours, walking nature trails and trying to dodge the swarms of ladybugs and gnats everywhere.  Because I knew we'd be gone for a while, and I would have a lot of cleaning up around here to do before Richard gets home tonight, I figured today was a perfect day for a soup in the slow cooker.  We had a ton of broccoli in the fridge, so I really didn't have much of a choice.  I love creamy, pureed soups, but I don't like always having to fight with the flavor of coconut milk to get it savory enough, so I used my secret weapon:  cauliflower.  People!  If you haven't used cauliflower as a creamy base, you are seriously missing out!  And bonus, the whole soup is now veggies so it's decadent and creamy, but without all of the guilt.  You're just eating veggies!

I'm still not good at this, so I'm sorry in advance.  I took more photos, but I was just winging the recipe. 

Here's what you'll need to get started:
4 crowns of fresh broccoli, chopped (reserve about 1/2 cup if you want your soup to have texture)
1 head of fresh cauliflower, chopped
1 small yellow onion, chopped
* Don't worry about how you chop this stuff, it'll be pureed.

Now, I don't season this yet really, because I tend to season to taste.  I added a bit of salt and two cups of water to this, and turned it on high for about 3 hours.  Then we went to the park and played for a while.  When we came back, I put the kids down for a late nap and went right into the next steps.

If your veggies look like this, you're ready to move onto pureeing.  Now, you can do as much or as little as you like.  What I did was fill up the cup of my NutriBullet (the biggest one), blend until smooth, then return to the pot.  Then I filled it up again with the next batch, so some bits were being blended multiple times, just because I like some texture.  You could do it more systematically and get it all pureed if you don't care for texture.  Once it's blended to the consistency you want, make sure it's all back in the slow cooker and begin adding the flavor!  I grabbed some of the puree, added it to the NutriBullet, and then two cloves of garlic and one tiny home grown poblano pepper for a little kick and blended them right in fresh.  Put this back into the pot and stir in, the items will cook on low with the rest of the soup and not be so harsh.  Adding them at this point, rather than the beginning, means that the flavors will develop but will not disappear, I want this to have layers of flavor. 

Nutritional yeast!  People, this is amazing stuff.  It will add a hint of cheesiness without actually adding cheese.  I added with my stupid looking hand for added drama, I would normally just eyeball it straight from the jar.  If you don't have any on hand, don't worry, your soup will turn out just fine. 

 

This step is optional, depending on how much texture you like.  I reserved some of the more finely chopped pieces of broccoli and added them in during this step so there would be some chunks.  You can leave this out if you prefer, it'll still be amazing.  

 

 The last thing I added were the spices.  Salt, pepper, onion powder, all eyeballed and to taste.  I know it seems redundant to have onions in there and onion powder, but believe me, you don't want to skip this spice.  It makes a huge difference!  Remember, layers of flavor.  Building a soup in the slow cooker can be challenging as everything tends to become bland and all one flavor, so you really need to work at building.  I also added about a tablespoon of Better Than Bouillon Chicken Base, because I like to live on the wild side.  Do you too?  Do it.  You won't regret it.  Chicken stock would work too. 

Once spiced up, I turned it on low and cooked for two more hours. 

And there we go!  A really terribly lit photo of the finished product.  Serve with toasted garlic bread and watch it disappear.  My kids each ate two bowls, that's how good it is.  Although they said it should have had ham in it.  Maybe they're right.  Next time.  But this time, it's creamy, it's comforting, it's fall.  And fall is a beautiful thing!  Happy Sunday friends!