Knowing that we were going to be snowed in by the impending second coming of snowpocalypse, my roommate and I (I guess she's like my unofficial partner in this blog now?) went to Walmart and bought all the necessary ingredients for the only dish that really makes sense in those kinds of conditions: soup, specifically broccoli cheddar soup.
As the snowflakes began to accumulate, I started by chopping some onions. Even though we lit a Christmas candle (appropriate for the weather, we thought) to stave off the eye-watering sting of the onions, I found myself frequently running over to the door of our apartment to shove my face out into the frigid, snowy air just to give my burning eyeballs a break. Eventually, half of a large yellow onion was sufficiently diced and thrown into the deep pot on the stove to saute in some butter.
It was then my job to add 3 cups of water and 3 chicken bullion cubes to the pot and wait for it to boil while my roommate shredded the carrots. On her most recent trip home, she had borrowed this electric shredding thing from her mom. The words "Salad Shooter" were printed across the side of the little contraption, and when you put a couple carrots in the top, it whirred and buzzed and then shot out thin shreds of carrot, the perfect size for salads, or, as in our case, broccoli cheddar soup. After putting three medium sized carrots through the salad shooter, she moved on to cutting up the broccoli. As anyone who knows me knows, I do NOT like broccoli, so the fact that I am even entertaining the idea of eating something with broccoli in the name is kind of astounding. But my roommate assured me, as she cut the broccoli into slightly smaller (but still ridiculously gross-looking) chunks, that the nasty green menace would shrink down in the soup a little and that with all the cheese and noodles we were about to add, I wouldn't even notice them.
When the water broke out into a boil, I tossed in the veggies and then waited for a second boil before adding in the 2 cups of egg noodles. The pot looked like a jumble of orange and green; had potatoes been an ingredient, this soup would have felt very Irish. During the 5-6 minutes that all this then boiled for a third time, I cubed the giant, 1 lb log of Velveeta cheese that we bought. The processed cheese stuck to my hands, the knife, and the cutting board as I tried to slice and pry it into smaller pieces. It grossed us out a little to think about the fact that we didn't need to refrigerate this stuff, it was fine all on its own. And yet, the cheesiness was probably my favorite part of the finished product.
Once the egg noodles were nice and tender, we threw in 3 cups of milk, all the freshly cubed cheese, and some garlic powder to taste. As soon as the cheese was melted and mixed thoroughly throughout the soup, we were ready to dig in. Warm and filling as any soup should be, it was also chewy, crunchy, and cheesy at the same time. The combination of broccoli, carrots, and noodles provided the texture, while the cheese was the creamy glue that tried to hold it all together and it turned out to be the most dominate flavor by far. My roommate was kind of right about the broccoli, I didn't notice it hardly at all, but this could have been because I spent a lot of my dinner time meticulously picking through the chunks and separating out the ugly green trees. Needless to say, my roommate declined when I offered all my broccoli bites.
The odd thing, though, was that there was this weird, mysterious white substance that built up and clung to everything in our bowls. It almost looked like tiny little cheese curds, but we were pretty sure it wasn't coming from the cheese because when we had had this soup made for us by my roommate's mom in the past, she always used Velveeta and this stuff had never come up for her. Perhaps it was the brand of egg noodles we used? We really had no idea. But that, combined with the somewhat watery consistency of the liquid parts of the soup, made us nostalgic for how Mrs. Angeli used to make, and that's just ultimately gave this dish a mediocre rating in my book.
Of course, I forgot to take pictures while we were cooking and eating this time around, but I do have a picture of our leftovers:
It tastes better than it looks, but not as good as it sounds. Thus, mediocre. But if anybody wants to try and do it better, here's the short version of the recipe we followed:
Broccoli Cheddar Soup:
1 onion (diced) 2-3
Tbl. butter
3 c. water 3
tsp. chicken bullion cubes/granules
1 pkg. frozen broccoli 2-3
shredded carrots
1 ½ -2 c. very fine egg noodles 3 c. milk
1 lb. Velveeta cheese (cubed) Garlic powder
Sauté onion in butter.
Add water and instant chicken cubes/granules. Bring to a boil. When boiling add the
shredded carrots and the broccoli.
Again, when boiling add egg noodles.
Boil 5-6 minutes. Add milk,
cheese and garlic powder to taste. Heat
until cheese is melted and well stirred into soup.
Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment