broccoli soup with homemade croutons

This head of broccoli had beautiful purple florets. The soup still turned out green though. This recipe is super easy and requires very little attention. It only consists of carrots, celery, garlic, onion and broccoli. Add water, olive oil and salt to that vegetable mixture. Use an immersion blender and you have yourself broccoli soup! Homemade croutons make it all the better.

Recipe:

One head of broccoli (cut into small florets)

Five medium sized carrots (chopped into 1 inch rounds)

Five celery stalks (chopped into 1 inch pieces)

One onion (sliced)

Couple cloves of garlic (left whole, with only white paper and stem removed)

1/3 cup olive oil

Salt

About 4 or 5 cups of water or veggie stock

Put the olive oil in a large stock pot at medium heat. When hot, add onions. Let the onion cook til they're shiny and a bit brown. Add celery and carrots and cook for an additional five minutes. Add water or stock and throw in the garlic cloves. Add salt. Bring to a boil and then add the broccoli. Add a couple more sprinkles of salt. Turn heat down to a simmer and let cook for about 20 minutes until the vegetables are all very soft. Remove from heat and use an immersion blender to blend all the ingredients together. Make sure not to lift immersion blender out of soup mixture or you'll get yourself soup burned!

Homemade croutons

This is undoubtedly the easiest, quickest little add on recipe to do. And it gives soups a heartier full meal element. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. All you have to do is break off pieces of stale bread, put it on a oiled baking sheet and slather with olive oil and sprinkle salt on top. Bake for about 10 minutes. Ta da! Olive oil-rich salty, crispy bread! Add generously to soup! Top with cheddar cheese if you so desire.