{"id":804,"date":"2009-09-21T16:09:18","date_gmt":"2009-09-21T20:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/?p=804"},"modified":"2009-09-21T16:09:18","modified_gmt":"2009-09-21T20:09:18","slug":"yes-you-heard-me-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/yes-you-heard-me-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Yes, you heard me right!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I absolutely love soup. Even though I live in a place where it is at least in the 80’s, if not the 90’s most of the year, I can eat soup all of the time. Maybe it’s because I am cold natured and once the air conditioning hits below 75 I am chilled. I don’t know, but I am not going to complain because soup is an easy meal that can be made a million healthy ways. I love the fact that it is usually hearty, but it doesn’t have to be laden with fat, calories and sodium to be that way.<\/p>\n

With that said, you are probably thinking that cream based soups are definitely out of the question then. Wrong! A fellow blogger of mine, Cara at Cara’s Cravings<\/a>, is always coming up with healthy, yet delicious and satisfying meal ideas. She is amazing at thinking outside of the box. Well, a while back I found a recipe on her blog for a Creamy Asparagus Soup. The word’s “Amazingly Healthy” were also placed in front of the title. This was definitely something I was going to have to try!<\/p>\n

So, you ask, how does she make this so called “creamy” soup creamy while still keeping it healthy? Don’t you dare snub your nose at this when I tell you!!! Cottage Cheese. Yes, I said cottage cheese. As we all know, this is something that you either like or you loathe. I am pretty sure most people loathe it because of it’s not so appealing texture. I mean it is instilled in us from a young age that chunks in dairy products aren’t usually a good sign, except of course with cottage cheese. Well, I assure you that this “creamy” soup will in fact be creamy and not chunky. The trick is pureeing the cottage cheese so it actually has a completely smooth texture and resembles a cream substance. I honestly thought this was genius and would have never thought to do it on my own. As Cara reminds us in her post, not only are you making a soup creamy without guilt, but you are also adding a good amount of protein and calcium to your dish.<\/p>\n

So, Cara dared us to make this for our non-cottage cheese eating husbands, which I did. The first time I made this I made it exactly the way she did. Although my husband was a bit freaked out by the thought of the cottage cheese, he did admit that it was a great soup and that if he didn’t know, then he would not be able to tell there was cottage cheese in it. Well, I decided to make it again recently, but try it with different veggies. Instead of asparagus I included broccoli and cauliflower. It turned out just as fabulous as the asparagus version. So I send you off to go try the cottage cheese method and experiment with it a bit. I assure you, you will not be disappointed.<\/p>\n

\"Brocc<\/p>\n

Creamy Broccoli and Cauliflower Soup<\/h2>\n

adapted from Cara’s Cravings<\/a><\/p>\n

1 tsp olive oil
\n1\/4 cup chopped onion
\n2 garlic cloves, minced
\n12 oz. of fresh broccoli\/cauliflower mix (or 6 oz. of each)
\nfreshly ground salt & pepper
\n1\/4-1\/2 teaspoon garlic powder
\n1\/4-1\/2 teaspoon oregano
\n1 teaspoon lemon juice
\n2 cups chicken broth
\n6oz low fat cottage cheese
\n1\/4 cup nonfat milk<\/p>\n

Wash the broccoli and cauliflower, and chop into small pieces, about 1\/4-1\/2″. Heat olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook for about 7 minutes, until softened and translucent. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more. Add broccoli and cauliflower, salt & pepper, lemon juice and seasoning and stir to combine. Add chicken broth; this should be enough to just cover the vegetables in the pan. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer for about 10-15 minutes until vegetables are tender.<\/p>\n

Blend together the cottage cheese and milk in a blender or in a separate container using an immersion blender, until completely smooth. Set aside.<\/p>\n

Remove the soup from heat and process until smooth, either using an immersion blender or by transferring to a food processor or blender. Return to medium-low heat and gently stir in cottage cheese mixture. Bring to a boil, and cook for 1-2 minutes to let it fully thicken.<\/p>\n

*Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

-Cara used Penzey’s Greek seasoning in her version instead of the spice blend. If you have the Greek seasoning, feel free to use 1 tsp. of that in place of the garlic powder, oregano and lemon juice that I used.<\/p>\n

-I have used both a blender and an immersion blender, I recommend the immersion blender over the regular blender if you have the choice.<\/p>\n

-Be sure to blend the cottage cheese until it is COMPLETELY smooth. If you don’t get it completely smooth, then you will have small chunks in your soup.<\/p>\n

-You can also make this soup vegetarian by using vegetable stock\/broth.<\/p>\n

Yields 4 smaller servings<\/p>\n

Approximate Nutrition Facts (according to Spark Recipe)\r\nServing Size: about 2 ladles full\r\nCalories: 92.1\r\nTotal Fat: 2.6 g\r\nSaturated Fat: 1.7 g\r\nPolyunsaturated Fat: 0.4 g\r\nMonounsaturated Fat: 0.6 g\r\nCholesterol: 10.3 mg\r\nCarbohydrates: 8.5 g\r\nDietary Fiber: 2.7 g\r\nProtein: 9 g<\/pre>\n
*The sodium content is going to vary depending on the type of stock\/broth that you use.  I recommend using a low sodium version.  I used a cottage cheese that had a 4% fat content, feel free to use something less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I absolutely love soup. Even though I live in a place where it is at least in the 80’s, if not the 90’s most of the year, I can eat soup all of the time. Maybe it’s because I am cold natured and once the air conditioning hits below 75 I am chilled. I don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,59,4,30,15,25,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-broccoli","category-cauliflower","category-healthful","category-lemon","category-soup","category-vegetables","category-vegetarian"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":812,"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions\/812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}