Cream of Broccoli Soup

I had bought some broccoli to make a broccoli salad but I just didn't get around to making it and the broccoli started to get a little spongy. Not wanting to waste it, I was trying to think of something else to make with it and that's when I thought of making a "Cream of Broccoli" soup.



Ingredients:
8 - Tbsp of butter (6 and 2)
2/3 - Cup flour
1/4 - Cup chopped onion
4 - Cups broccoli florets, cut into bite sized pieces
6 - Cups chicken broth
3/4 - Cup of half-and-half (or mix whipping cream and mix)
1 - Tsp Salt
1/4 - Tsp Pepper



Directions:
In a small sauce pan, melt 6 Tbsp of butter over low heat. Add in the flour and stir until blended but do not brown it, then remove from heat. It really does take the 6 Tbsp of butter. I was trying to use less at first but it wasn't enough to completely mix in with the flour.

Chop up the broccoli if you haven't already done so.

In a large saucepan, melt 2 Tbsp of butter.

Add onion and cook until tender.

Add the broccoli to the pan and cook for 6 - 8 minutes stirring occasionally.

Add the chicken broth and then bring to a boil.

Whisk in the flour mixture and continue to whisk until the soup thickens.

Add the salt, pepper and pour in the cream. Mix again.

Turn off the heat at let it rest for a couple minutes before severing.

Ladle into bowls and top with a sharp cheddar cheese.

I think the soup turned out really good but I think next time I might try to add some spices to really flavor it up.

Sauteed Fiddleheads (FAILED)

Not all my recipes turn out but that's okay, the important thing is that I try. This particularly fail started out this weekend. We went to the St. Jacob's market early Saturday morning to look around and get some fresh produce. While looking around I noticed these really good looking fiddleheads. I have seen them in the store before but they never looked that good so I picked them up and figured that I would find a recipe when I got home. I did some quick searching and my options were sauteing, baking or deep frying. I decided on sauteing as I figured these would be like asparagus.

Ingredients:

Fiddleheads

2 - Tbsp Butter

2 - Cloves Garlic

1 - Tbsp Lemon Juice

Directions:

Take a look at the fiddleheads any remove and brown pieces or dirt

Rinse them off (if they are really dirty you will need to soak them in a couple changes of water but these ones were really clean)

Melt butter in frying pan and then add the fiddleheads

Saute for 2 - 3 minutes then add garlic and lemon juice

Saute for another couple of minutes. This is the part where I went wrong. I had thought that they would have softened up a lot quicker but then didn't so I ended up leaving them on longer. I then tried covering them to try and steam them a little bit. The end result was that they turned very bitter tasting. When I was at about the 5 - 7 minute mark they tasted a little firm but really good and not bitter at all but leaving them on longer just doesn't work. Make sure you make these right before you main course is almost ready.

Sprinkle with a little salt and then serve

As you can see, they look really good but don't over cook them or they are just bitter. After the failure I did some more searching and a lot of the recipes say that you should boil the fiddleheads for 10 - 12 minutes before Sauteing them so I guess I screwed up that part too. oh well...