Adapted from Williams-Sonoma after eating it at a church potluck in Mankato when we were visiting the in-laws. I can thank Katie Dick for bringing it, I believe, and my sister-in-law Gretchen for knowing where to find the recipe to make my own.

It just so happened that I’d been dreaming of broccoli cheese soup just as my daughter was demanding I make that dream a reality. You see, along with warmer climates and water parks, Kiwi had a long list of food items she requested for over spring break. I laughed when I saw the list, not because of the food items themselves, but because when considering what would could rescue the next 10 days from being “the worst spring break ever,” she’d decided that food was top of the list.

So we bought cheese and forgot broccoli. The next week I bought the broccoli. Then I got busy with work and commitments and everything else, and the soup was put off and put off and put off until I couldn’t put it off anymore. The broccoli was drying out, and it was either make it or throw away all that broccoli. Obviously, I made the soup. I hate wasting things.

This time thing is one I am all too familiar with as an independent contractor. Work piles up, projects take longer, things come up. What gets missed are the things that are flexible, and unfortunately, that usually means things like Saturday afternoon soup sessions. It’s part of the balance that I set out this year in search of, and I’m still searching for that balance, to not give up the things I enjoy when work calls, about managing it better, setting limits.

And so, finally, partially driven by my disgust that I was letting the broccoli go to waste, but mostly driven because my daughter is persistent and I couldn’t let myself say “tomorrow” any longer, we made soup. Together. Melt half a stick of butter in a stockpot or whatever your favorite soup-making vessel is.

When the butter is melted, toss in a few diced onions. Sauté the onions in the butter until they start to look clear. This should take anywhere from 7-10 minutes.

Add garlic just at the end for the last minute.

Enter the flour. Whisk it in to prevent lumps.

Cook this mixture for 4-5 minutes, stirring constantly.

Slowly whisk in the cream.

Add in chicken stock. I make my own. I can’t remember the last time I purchased it. That said, adjust the salt level for your soup based on the type of chicken stock you use. My homemade stock doesn’t have much salt in it, so I need to account for that while seasoning my food. I made tamales recently where I forgot this important piece of information.

Bay leaves.

Fresh tarragon, salt and pepper and the smallest bit of nutmeg. Let this simmer for 20 minutes.

Enter the broccoli. Some recipes call for less broccoli. I like my soup to have some substance, so I add more. Not a fan of chunks, add less. This is intuitive, no?

Stir the broccoli into the pot and simmer for another 20 minutes.

While your soup is simmering away, decide which cheese(s) you’re going to use. I think cheddar would be the most common here. That said, I’m not a huge fan of all cheddar in soups. It never melts just right to give me that completely smooth, silky texture that I want, but I am going to use at least some of it. When choosing a cheddar, choose a high quality, sharp variety. Low quality=lumps and stringy soup. Don’t do it.

With the cheddar I went for Gruyère. It melts evenly and is creamy in soups.

After removing your bay leaves, slowly stir in handfuls of cheese at a time.

And continue until you have it all worked in.

This is the perfect soup for, say, a random snow day in the month of April that I know many people had recently, while you’re sitting inside dreaming of gardening and sipping lemonade on the back porch.

It may not be the same as lemonade, but it definitely takes the chill away, and it’s worth letting the work pile up on your desk just a bit longer.

Finally, the winner of my blog birthday giveaways! Barbara R. won The Pioneer Woman Cooks (and t-shirt), The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook and the Blog Aid Cookbook! Denise S. is the Facebook winner of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day!

Thank you so much for being here. Again, I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you stop by and say hi and hopefully find something useful here in my little piece of internet. Thank you.

I have emailed both of the winners. If I don’t hear from them within 48 hours, I’ll pick a new winner and update here.

My appetite changes with the season. In the winter I appreciate things that warm you up and keep you warm. Like soup. In the summer, soup takes a back seat to pasta salads, potato salads, slaws, grilled meats and fresh fruit. A warm cup of soup on a winter day makes the transition from morning coffee to lunchtime that much easier. Yes. I use coffee to keep warm. Sometimes tea too.

There is something about a well-balanced soup that makes me smile on the inside. Over the years I’ve learned the importance of making my own soup. The ability to control the seasonings, the amount of salt and to add fresh vegetables makes each and every drop worth it in my book. It doesn’t hurt that it fills the house with wafts of its savory goodness as it simmers away the afternoon.

I hadn’t attempted a potato leek soup before now, mostly due to the fact that I don’t appreciate soup recipes that call for adding chicken stock or broth when there is no chicken in the soup. I’m big on making it from scratch, and adding chicken where there is no chicken or beef where there is no beef just doesn’t make sense to me. Perhaps it’s the former vegetarian in me screaming to be let out. Plus, my freezer stash of frozen stocks and broths is gone. We haven’t had a whole chicken in quite a while. I should add that to this week’s menu. When I saw a recipe for potato leek soup on Food Woolf that started with nothing but leeks and water, I was instantly sold, with some tweaking, of course. I can never leave a recipe alone.

So, um, naturally, start by chopping three leeks. You could slice the stalk in half first to make moon shapes, but I find the circles to be appealing and, well, fun.

In a large stockpot over medium heat add a bit of olive oil. When it’s nice and hot, add the leeks.

Sauté for ten minutes until they are soft and sweaty.

And then add two cloves of garlic for good measure and sauté for 30 more seconds.

Pour in two quarts of agua.

Add in the green tops of the leeks to give it even more flavor. We’ll remove them later. Bring it to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer.

After 30 minutes, remove the long green tops of the leeks, but don’t discard yet.

You could make a bouquet garni with the leek tops before they are simmered, but I didn’t have any issue using them post-simmer. In fact, I think they were easier to stuff full of thyme, peppercorns and bay leaves.

Secure the bouquet garni with some kitchen twine and toss it right into your simmering leeks.

Next to come to the party will be one and a half pounds of potatoes, the gold variety, peeled and diced. Add those to the pot as well

And now add a bit of white wine. I went with a pinot grigio because, well, we’d opened the bottle the night before and hadn’t finished it. All the more reason to cook with it.

And then continue to simmer until the potatoes are tender.

It took me about 45 minutes before I was really satisfied with my potato texture.

Find your friend, Mr. Heavy Whipping Cream. You really don’t need to add him, but why not? Okay. If you want, no cream. Go completely vegan and omit entirely, or you could try adding a bit of milk if you’re afraid of the extra calories and fat. I, obviously, am not. Bring on the cream.

And at this point you’re ready to season with a bit of salt and white pepper and hit the blender or the food processor.

Return to the stockpot and heat to desired temperature or store in a heat-proof container in the fridge or freezer until ready to heat and serve. When you’re done, you’ll have a thick and creamy soup, sure to warm you from the inside out.

And keep you warm as you wait for winter to turn to spring and spring to turn to summer.

Some things are worth it. Be it time, distance or price, some things are just worth the effort. This entry covers all the bases. Get comfortable. I have a lot to say…as does Ole.

While we were in California this year on a trip back to Martinelli, one of our favorite wineries, we were told about a great cheese shop outside of Santa Rosa. We followed the hand drawn map, found Llano Road and turned down the driveway that transitioned from blacktop to dirt, past the vines and bovines, past a pile of pumpkins and a very crooked tree to a small building by a barn. We found ourselves at Joe Matos Cheese Factory at closing time. Luckily, a loud alarm rings when you open the door alerting all in the surrounding mile that you are there in the drying room. It’s a good thing there are only fields and cows in that mile.

It didn’t take long for Mary Matos to appear from another room, and before we could even say a word, she’d cut off generous hunks of St. Jorges, the only variety the Matos produce, named for the island in the Azores from which they immigrated. The flavor is sort of like a mild Swiss except creamier and more delicious, maybe with some Havarti thrown in. A Google or two let’s us know that melting it is ideal.

If you find yourself in the area, be sure to swing over and pick some up. Note: the Matos take only cash, no plastic here – a fact that caused us to make a return trip the next day. After carefully packaging it for the return trip home, our chunk of St. Jorges met its final destination (2,064 miles from its origin), in the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. Yes, perfect.

All I added to the cheese and bread (aside from a large smear of butter on the whole grain bread) was a few basil leaves. This cheese can stand alone on a cracker, in a mac and cheese, between two slices of bread or just in the palm of your hand. And to make it a meal, what better than a steaming bowl of homemade tomato soup?

Heat a bit of olive oil in a pan.

Toss in a few diced tomatoes and a bit of onion and let it cook down.

It should get nice and juicy.

Towards the end we’ll add the garlic (to make sure it doesn’t burn).

Then add crushed tomatoes, whether they come from a store-bought can or one you filled yourself at the end of the growing season. I also add a bit of water here because I felt like the mixture looked a little thicker than I’d personally like. Just a bit to help it simmer.

After the tomatoes have been simmering for 25 minutes or so, add fresh basil to the mix. I cut up the larger leaves, but I left the smaller ones for the hand blender. I just gave it a few pulses to take care of some of the larger tomato chunks and bring the soup together more. You could pour all the soup (slightly cooled) at this point into a blender and puree it into one even texture, or you could use a hand blender until your desired consistency is reached. Me? I don’t mind a few chunks, so a few pulses was all it took.

Add a cup of cream to the soup and season it with kosher salt and pepper to your liking.

After another 5 or so minutes (to heat up the cream but not boil it), you’re ready to serve. This should be just enough time to finish up the grilled cheese.

At this point I realized that my light bulbs above the stove and the sink were burnt out, making for difficult lighting in the kitchen area. I then went to the table, but you can see that wasn’t much better. The overhead bubble light did nothing for the soup and sandwich.

Plus, I had limited space with one of my brother-in-laws and his four kids joining ours.

I went into the living room, but the darker colors and, again, overhead bubble lights were just not giving me anything. And I was starting to get hungry.

And the temptation and curiosity of how the cheese had fared during the melting process was too much. I wasn’t disappointed. The St. Jorge’s melted beautifully, and the basil complemented the nuttiness of the cheese and the whole thing together contrasted the creamy soup and made for a perfect dunking companion.

I woke up with a migraine yesterday. I have to say that after this odd three-week hiatus (unheard of if you’re me), I particularly resented this one. It was just there. No usual phantom warning, flecks of light, odd pain elsewhere. There. Pounding at my eyelids and making it impossible for me to feel like dragging myself out of bed when my alarm went off at 5:45 in the morning, even though it had to happen.

I think the fact that I’d been oddly migraine-free for about three weeks really made me bitter with this one. How dare my body trick me into believing that some sort of normalcy could be obtained. The weekly, two-day migraines a thing of the past. On a good day, juggling four kids and a more than full-time workload all from home at the same time under the same roof isn’t easy. It is at the very opposite end of that spectrum, teetering on the edge of insanity some days. Most days? More days than I’d personally like to admit to at the moment.

But it is these days that I truly enjoy things like a fridge and freezer full of heat-and-eat goodness. Casseroles, enchiladas, lasagnas, pasta dishes and, of course, soup. It keeps us far away from the drive-thru and warm and cozy in my little house that could use a good scrub down after a week like this last. Any takers? I’ll bake you a plate or two full of Christmas cookies.

Smallish-sized pieces of celery, onion and carrot.

Slice a few mushrooms. Again with the mini ports. They’re pretty. They speak to me, so I buy them. Don’t act like vegetables don’t speak to you. (Let’s pretend I didn’t just mention insanity up there.)

Heat a bit of olive oil in a large stockpot. We’re going to sauté the vegetables.

Kind of. This is a lot of vegetables. Keep the heat a bit above medium and continue stirring.

We’re looking for the onions to lose their fog and become translucent.

And when they get that way, toss in a bit of garlic and give it a stir.

For kicks, I’m adding in some wine. Look for something dry like a dry vermouth or even a Trader Joe’s special Three-Buck Chuck. (YES, 3 whole dollars now!) If you aren’t a wine drinker…I suppose you could use cooking wine. I won’t tell. Because we’re the ones in control of the salt, we’ll just adjust at the end.

Now, stir in a cup of flour.

And keep stirring and cooking for a good three minutes to make sure it starts to cook down. It will start to look a bit like paste on the vegetables.

Then we’re going to add the wild rice and…

…the turkey stock, or chicken or vegetable. Because I made my own turkey stock, I know that I didn’t add any additional salt to it. If using a store-bought variety, look for a low sodium or no sodium added variety. Better to control it yourself at the end and adjust with real salt, not MSG and get it the way you like it.

Notice the black husk on the wild rice. All closed and covered up. We want to let those babies out of their buttoned-up exteriors. Pop a lid on the stockpot and let it simmer over a medium-low heat for a good 45 minutes.

And when you come back, the wild rice should be showing a bit of leg…or we want them to be tender on the inside. The inside that has now been exposed.

Now it’s time to stir in your precooked turkey or chicken. This happens to be leftover roast turkey, but you could easily toss in a bit of grilled chicken or skip the meat altogether if you’re not into eating it. I didn’t for 7 years. I can relate.

Whichever it is, just chop it up into smallish-pieces and stir it in.

Let it simmer for a few minutes to heat up the meat pieces and get the heat of the broth back up.

Finally, dump in the cream. The answer is yes. I do have a thing for cream soups. I like a few others as well, but you have to wait for those until I get my fill of this first.

Once you add in the cream, let it simmer for a while over very low heat.

And you can serve yourself a bowl, dish others up, put it in containers and stick them in the fridge for lunch or the freezer for emergency migraine meals. Creamy, warm, delicious. It reminds me of being younger, of discovering soup in bread bowls and quickly realizing that this is the only soup that did it for me in a sourdough bread bowl. There could be no other.

Let’s talk turkey. Turkey carcass, that is. No, don’t throw it away. Let’s use it. While I used to snicker when my aunt’s would decide who would bring home this year’s turkey bones or the ham bone at the holidays, I now understand. I get it. I have been enlightened. The power of making your own stock, your own broth may have been lost on me when I was 13 and had no time for such foolishness, but as I began to cook for my own family and not just my siblings while my mom worked night shifts as a Registered Nurse, I realized and understand what Laura Ingalls Wilder had taught me when I first read Little House in the Big Woods back in kindergarten. Use every last bit. Let nothing go to waste. Besides, it tastes better and is better for you than that sodium-packed, yellow dye no. 5 you can buy at the store. Oh, and it’s easy.

Take your turkey carcass and toss it in a stockpot. Mine happens to be an 8-quart. It’s about right for one average-sized bird carcass. If you had a larger bird (20 pounds or more), use a bigger pot. This is intuitive, right?

To my pot I added the end and tops of my celery stalk, a whole red onion, quartered with skins, a few shallots I had that had been sitting in the bottom of the veggie drawer too long, parsley from my herb pots and sage from my herb pots. You could add a bay leaf or two if you had them around. I did not, but I didn’t really miss them.

And fill with water until the turkey is completely covered and bring to a boil. After it comes to a boil, I keep my heat right below the “medium” level on my stove. Check on the pot every hour or so. If scum and foam starts to congregate on the top, just skim it off. If the bones start really sticking out of the water, you can add a bit more boiling water to the pot just so that they stay submerged.

After four or so hours, you’re ready to go. Fill the sink with ice, place another pot in it and a strainer on top. Pour your liquid through so the strainer catches all of your bones and vegetables.

Let the stock cool before moving it to a container to store it in. Remove any fat that may rise to the surface once the stock is refrigerated. Stock can be stored in the fridge for 2 or 3 days or in the freezer for a few months. It makes a wonderful soup or sauce base.
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