It's a shame I haven't posted any of the amazing meals I have made for my family this summer. Food blogging, I have come to realize, is a bit more time consuming than blogging about family, or work, or whatever else there is to blog about. At any rate, we have all been sick the past week, and have been making hearty soups to help get us all feeling better. I was surfing the web and came across a cream of broccoli soup, and did what I often do, change it up to fit whats in our pantry. It was AMAZING. I wasn't sure I was going to love it but holy moly, Marc and I kept saying "this is SO good, how on earth did I not make this before?!?!!?"

What you will need:
4-5 tablespoons of butter (NOT EVOO)
12 oz. bag of broccoli
1 large onion chopped
1 carrot chopped
 2 teaspoons minced/crushed garlic
pepper to taste
1 Tablespoon Knorr chicken bouillon seasoning to taste (or salt, but bouillon adds a better flavor)
3 tablespoons of flour
32oz carton of chicken broth
1/2 cup of cream (or milk if that's easier for you)
3 Tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese (NOT powdered green bottle kind, if you don't have parmesan cheese just skip it, no use in buying it if you don't use it often, you can add shredded cheese of choice when you serve it if you so desire :)
Optional: Your choice of rice, we prefer brown rice,  or croutons,  or slice of bread....


Melt butter in a large pot, add broccoli, onion, carrot, 1tsp pepper, 2 teaspoons of minced garlic, 1 tablespoon of chicken bouillon. Sautee on med/high until onion looks translucent. About 5 mins.
Add flour cook for about a minute until the flour looks "blonde"
Add carton of stock and bring it to a boil
Simmer until the broccoli is VERY tender, pour in cream and parmesan cheese and turn off heat
Using an immersion blender OR regular blender: blending/creaming until all the broccoli has blended.
Taste: you can add more pepper/salt depending on your palate.

We love Trader Joe's microwave 3min brown rice. Added it on top after the soup was poured.