Too really enjoy cooking, you’ve got to either have people to cook with or people to share your food with. Yes, I do enjoy making myself a nice meal every now and then and eating it alone, but the meals I enjoy the most are ones I’ve either made with or shared with friends and family. With the weather turning for the worse and the whole day lights saving deal its officially time to throw on a jacket, a warm scarf, and winter boots and make your way over to a friend’s house to complain about winter and cook. I made plans to do exactly that earlier this week with a friend. We decided to make soup and biscuits to help cope with the disgusting cold and rainy weather. After a particularly miserably rainy Saturday I was sure that our Sunday cooking date would be perfect, with lots of sitting inside with warm soup and biscuits watching it rain. So, of course, I woke up on Sunday to a crisp lovely morning with the clearest blue skies I’d seen all week. Figures. We still made soup and biscuits and they were still tasty like woah. We started with her biscuits from Red Lobster(I’ve never been but they obviously are good at biscuits), which were beyond easy and ridiculously tasty.

They legit were so easy. You mix bisquick (which already has baking powder, oil, etc) with milk and cheese. That’s it. I love measuring and mixing but I also love being lazy! So I love bisquick! What a great recipe. Red Lobster really knows where its at apparently. SO yeah we mixed and scooped and threw them in the oven. We made 12 so they’d be smaller and we wouldn’t feel too guilty about eating three none of them…gotta keep my girlish figure (new plan, just look at food and imagine eating it…I’m going to lose so much weight!) Just kidding guys, we all know I’m not that kinda girl. If eating biscuits like this is wrong, then I definitely don’t want to be right!

While the biscuits were cooking we started in on the soup. My parents have been making broccoli soup for as long as I can remember and it has always been one of my favorites. I’m a huge fan of broccoli anyways so it makes sense that I dig it in soup form too. I think my favorite thing about broccoli is how it looks like little trees. It’s cute and tasty. What more could you ask for from a vegetable?? Be awesome puréed in soup? Well, surprise, broccoli is good at that too. And this is not one of those labor intensive soups that needs to cook for like 8 hours and you’ve got to stir it clock wise every 16.73 minutes while seasoning it with the blood of a virgin. It’s hearty and easaaay. Sauté some onions and celery. Add in some stock and the broccoli. Let it simmer for 10 minutes. So far so good yeah?

Once your broccoli is cooked aka you can stab it with a fork and there’s no resistance, its ready to blend. (I also like how green broccoli gets when its cooked, so pretty!) So yeah, poke around in there and keep track of how cooked your broccoli is. You don’t want it to get all gross and mushy cause then your soup ain’t gonna taste good. Over cooked broccoli should be a legal offense. It’s so easy to cook! You steam it for like 8 minutes! How is that hard?! Why are people so bad at making broccoli?! It should be crunchy but not raw, soft but not mush. Maybe its a delicate balance? I’ve never had any issues with it. But I could be a broccoli genius/idiot savant. Who knows. Whatever. Take your properly cooked broccoli, broth, onions, and celery and put them in a blender. Depending on the size of your blender you may want to do it in batches, but if you’re like my friend and you have a fantastic super blender you can put it all in. Also if you have a hand blender you can just use that and keep it in the pot.

Blended broccoli is cool and all but it’s super watery. SO to thicken your tasty soup you gotta make a roux, which is basically melted butter and flour. First, you melt some butter, make sure you wait until it is FULLY melted, then slowly add the flour while stirring it into the butter. You need to add the flour slowly so you can make sure it mixes smoothly into the butter, you don’t want your roux to be lumpy. For this recipe you also add some milk, wait to do that till your flour and butter are pretty well mixed and then you should have a nice smooth consistent roux. Once your roux is ready and you’re broccoli is blended its time to mix them! Pour your broccoli mix into the roux while stirring.

After you’ve mixed them together it’s time to season the crap out of it. Yeah broccoli is good and all but it does need some help with flavor. We put in about one tablespoon of pepper and a teaspoon or so of poultry seasoning. In the end it was delicious. My friend put sour cream and cheddar cheese on hers while I just put more pepper. You can season or top it however you want. It’s a pretty relaxed soup so feel free to experiment!

Despite our lovely weather we still had a great soup/cooking date. As the winter progresses we’ll certainly have more since her kitchen is so great….and cause they have the coolest dish towel ever! SO COOOL!

Click HERE for the Red Lobster Biscuit Recipe

Broccoli Soup

Adapted from allrecipes.com

• 1 tblsp butter
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 3 cups chicken broth (I used my turkey broth)
• 8 cups broccoli florets (about 4 broccoli heads)
• 3 tblsp butter
• 3 tblsp flour
• 2 cups milk
• ~1 tblsp black pepper
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp poultry seasoning (optional)

Melt 1 tablespoon butter in medium pot. Add onions and celery and sauté till soft and translucent. Add broccoli and broth, cover and let simmer for about 10 minutes, until broccoli is tender. Once broccoli is cooked, pour into blender and purée. If using a smaller blender then do in batches. In separate pot melt 3 tablespoons of butter, once butter is melted stir in flour. Once flour and butter are combined stir in milk. Stir until thick and lightly bubbling and then stir in broccoli purée. Once combined add pepper, salt, and poultry seasoning in increments, tasting frequently. Serve with whatever topping desired.