Roasted Broccoli Soup

I've always wondered what the difference between a vegetable soup and a vegetable purée was.

Well. Wonder no more. Just get your oven, stove and blender of choice ready and prepare yourself for the simplest way to pack as much liquid flavour into broccoli as possible.

This is actually super easy, and doesn't take very long hands on time to do. Especially for the warm hug of flavour you get from it.

Roasted Broccoli Soup

2 heads broccoli
olive oil, for roasting, for frying and adding at the end
4 cloves garlic
500ml broth, plus water

Chop the broccoli into pretty large florets, cover with oil (especially the brushy bits) and pop into a prelined dish. Roast in a preheated oven for 15 - 20 minutes or until tender.

Fry garlic cloves in a large saucepan with some oil in the bottom on low, until slightly brown. Add the broccoli (with the roasting olive oil too, if you like) and fry it a little if you want.
Pour in the broth, and if the water level doesn't reach to nearly the top of the broccoli, add some water until nearly covered.
Heat the water until hot (not boiling - it ruins the gelatine in the broth) and let it go for 10 - 15 minutes.
Purée the contents of the pot. I used a stick blender, which is a lot easier, but feel free to pour it into a normal blender and do it like that. Blend to your consistency liking (I like mine chunky).
Serve with a drizzle of olive oil on top.

Big Batches Save Time

Don't even ask why I haven't blogged.

School is such a nuisance, isn't it?

For my 'week' at dad's, I decided to make a big batch of stuff I can warm up in the oven during prelims time (less than two months! Eek!) so I made two pots of broth (fattiest and most gelatinous I've made yet), a few jars of applesauce and for lunch I had some lambs kidneys. If you don't count marrow and bones in any form as offal, this would have to be my favourite! Kinda because it's less bad than the others, so to speak. In my opinion, it looks like a squished sausage and tastes like farm. Just that essence of 'farm'. They mustn't have been too caged up then! My applesauce turned out a depressing faint orangy-pinkish-grey colour (it tasted fine) so I added a little boiled beetroot and that livened it right up. And my broth was mostly beef bones with two little lamby bones. And if I hold it upside down, it doesn't move! Loving my big batches of good food :)

I have recipes I played with ages ago that I haven't put up yet, so I will get to doing that some day or another.

Also, as I think of it, being winter here in Australia, I'm going to be making so many slow cooked meals for the times when I have no time (ie prelims). Be prepared for some awesome slow-but-fast recipes coming soon :)

One more thing. Yesterday we were shopping and I just randomly thought out of the blue to convince dad to get me the anchovy-smelling cod liver oil capsules. So in a few days I'll be trying them out - swallowed, mixed into stuff, on my eczema - and I'll let you guys know about it.