Who Needs Cream and Cheese

For broccoli cheddar soup. Those two ingredients are over rated anyway, and you can make  just as a delicious soup without them. I make a broccoli soup like this that does have some milk in it to make a creamier soup, but I wanted to make this recipe a vegan soup. You can use a milk substitute, but I did not because I wanted to see how it would be if I just blended the soup to make it creamy, but adding in a roux to help with that. And alas it worked. Ok so for the "cheese" I added nutritional yeast to give it that cheesy flavor, and if you have never used it before this is what it is: a deactivated yeast and a good source of protein and B Vitamins. It really does have a nutty, cheesy taste, I really like it. As for the broccoli part of this and any soup I like to use the stems of the broccoli. This is a good way to not waste the stems.  You just have to remove the tough "skin" of the stem and just use the inner part. So here is the recipe: (yet again a single serving)

Broccoli Cheezy Soup

4 broccoli stems, chopped
1/2 cup vegetable broth or water
1/2 teaspoon walnut oil or oil of choice
1 teaspoon flour (whole wheat white flour)
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon coriander
1 1/2 teaspoon nutritional yeast
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup water

In a pot, boil the stems in the broth or water until they are tender.

In another pot, heat the oil. Add the flour and cook for a 2 minutes.

Add in the spices.

Then slowly whisk in the water a little at a time, only a 1/2 cup max.

Mix the roux with the broccoli and broth.

Blend the stems and the roux together. I used a bur mixer (hand blender) but you can do this in the blender, adding the rest of the 1/2 cup of water as needed. Reheat and eat. Easy as that!

I also told you a while ago that I was recipe testing a few recipes that didn't turn out that great during their first attempt. I went back to the drawing board with my mini banana bites. And this time they came out great. I knew what the problem was after eating the first attempt, they needed more banana. They lacked that banana goodness flavor. So that was an easy fix. And you know how I am when I make something, I like to play around with the base recipe (like when I tested the cupcakes). That is exactly what I did with this recipe, and this is what I came up with: cinnamon raisin peanut butter bites, banana strawprise bites, double chocolate chip bites, and chocolate chip walnut bites. You may be wondering what a stawprise bite is, well a muffin that has a jam filled center. So good when you heat it up and the jam gets melted.

Mini Banana Bites 4 Ways

3 bananas, mashed
1/6 cup of canola oil (less then a 1/4 cup to make it half a 1/3 cup)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 cup whole wheat white flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon strawberry jam
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup peanut butter chips
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup walnut pieces
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a mini muffing pan.

Mix the bananas, oil, vanilla, and maple syrup.

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Slowly add in the water. You can stop here and make just banana bites.

Strawprise:

Place a teaspoon of the batter in the pan. Top with a little of the jam, then top with another teaspoon of the batter.

Cinnamon Raisin Peanut butter:

Place 1/2 a cup of the above batter with the cinnamon, raisins, and the peanut butter chips.

Double Chocolate Chip:

Mix the 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder with the 1 tablespoon of water and 1 tablespoon of flour. Add in 2 tablespoons of chocolate chips. Mix in 2 tablespoons of the batter.

Chocolate Chip Walnut:

Add the rest of the chocolate chips and walnuts with the remaining batter.

Add tablespoon fulls of the batter to the mini muffin cups. Bake for 30 minutes, turning half way through baking.

They came out much better than the first attempt. And I really love coming up with different ways to change a base batter to make variations all at one time.

Upcoming recipes: bbq pizza and sangria! (For the 4th of July bbq I am having.)