Last night I decided to widen my culinary horizons and make this soup.  Though I had initial misgivings about the recipe — specifically the fact that there weren’t really any exact measurements — I thought, “I’m a decent cook, I’ll figure it out.”  So here’s how it started:

I had purchased a large bunch of broccoli and and head of cauliflower, plus two russet potatoes, but only one 32oz box of veggie stock.  I came to realize that the stock only covered about half the veggies, so I threw in a box of chicken stock I had, topped it up with a bit of water, and started things up.  So in summary, the soup began with:

• 1 large head of broccoli, cut into florets
• 1 large head of cauliflower, cut into florets
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 medium to large russet potato
• 32oz vegetable stock
• 32oz chicken stock
• 16ish oz water
• salt, pepper, cumin

1. I sauteed the onion and carrot until tender, then added the rest of the veggies and liquid, plus salt, pepper, and cumin.  I brought all of this to a boil, then reduced to a simmer for 20 min.

At this point, things should have been going swimmingly.  The recipe breezily says to puree the soup after 20 minutes and it’s thick and delicious.  And healthy!  Well, lies.  Or at least the way I made it — lies.  I pureed the soup with my handheld blender and was left with a bland, watery mess.  It was basically hot broccoli water.  YUM.

So then, I decided to do some damage control and tried to thicken the soup/make it edible:

1. Chopped up the other russet potato, tossed it into the broccoli water, and put that mess back on the stove.  Brought it back to a boil.  Cursed myself for not trusting my instincts about not adding the second box of stock.

Seeing that this soup was well beyond the point of being thickened by a single potato, I decided to make a roux to thicken things up (which, I’ve never done before).  I also decided to add some garlic, because that broccoli water mess tasted like, well, broccoli water.  Ew.  So:

1. Melted 3 tbsp butter in a pot while I minced 2 tbsp. garlic.  I added the minced garlic to the butter and sauteed just until fragrant.
2. Then I added 3 tbsp (ish — I kind of just threw this in) flour, to the butter, while stirring constantly, which makes a thick paste.  I continued stirring for just a minute or two until the raw flour smell went away, then began ladling some of the hot soup into the mix.  The mixture quickly thickens up (and you have to stir constantly so it doesn’t burn).  After adding about 4 ladlefuls (not a word, apparently) of soup into the flour mixture, I poured the whole thing back into the soup pot.

But wouldn’t you know it, the freaking soup still wasn’t thick.

I thought I was going to eat this wildly healthful meal around 6:30pm — it’s well after 7pm at this point, and there’s broccoli-green “soup” splattered all over the stove and counters.  Ugh.

So I do ANOTHER roux.  More butter.  More flour.  The soup is getting less healthy by the second.  I don’t even care at this point.

The potato finished cooking finally, so there’s another round with the hand blender.  The soup is now thick — but BLAND.  More salt.  Crapload of pepper (like, TONS).  I rack my brain for what will save the soup and decide to just top it off with tons of cheese — cheddar and parmesan.  This does the trick.

At 8pm, I finally had soup.  Broccoli soup.  Y’know, made with like a buttload of butter and cheese.  Aaaand I’ve still got like a gallon of it left in the fridge.

So the final recipe ended up being:

• 1 large head of broccoli, cut into florets
• 1 large head of cauliflower, cut into florets
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 2 tbsp garlic, minced
• 2 medium to large russet potatoes
• 32oz vegetable stock
• 32oz chicken stock
• 16ish oz water
• salt, (bunch of) pepper, cumin
• 6 tbsp butter (!)
• 6(ish) tbsp flour
• Whole mess of cheddar and parmesan cheese

Sometimes, that’s just how life is.