Canadian Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year, we were just us. No road trip, no visitor or extra mouths to feed. I made a simple meal of roast beef, roast potatoes and baby carrots with green and wax beans. I decided to make soup as a starter. I love homemade soup. Every time I make chicken or turkey, I make stock so when I feel like making soup, I have some on hand. The key to really good soup is simple. Homemade stock. It has much more flavor and layers of tastes that make any soup great.
Today I made a creamy broccoli soup with a chicken base. If you want to make it vegetarian, you could easily use vegetable stock and it would be just as good.

Creamy Broccoli Soup

1 medium sweet onion, finely chopped
1 rib of celery, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
I head of broccoli, stem chopped
2 tablespoon of butter
3 cups of water

2 tablespoon of butter
2 tablespoon of all purpose flour
4 cups of chicken stock

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
1 cup of light cream or whole milk

In a large saucepan, melt butter. Add onion, celery, and garlic. Cook until onion is soft and translucent. Add water and broccoli. Cook until broccoli stems are tender, about 20 minutes. train, reserve liquid.

In a large soup pot, melt 2 tablespoons of flour and 2 tablespoons of butter. With a whisk, blend until smooth and creamy. Slowly pour in chicken stock. Bring to a low boil and simmer while you puree the vegetables. Slowly add the pureed vegetables to the chicken stock. Simmer 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, add milk by melting 1 tablespoon flour and 1 tablespoon butter in a small saucepan. With a whisk, blend until smooth. Slowly whisk in milk. once all the milk has been added to the flour mixture and it is smooth and creamy, slowly whisk milk mixture into the broccoli mixture. Simmer 20 minutes, until thickened. Serve immediately. Serves 8.

Casual Family Get Together

On Sunday, we had a small family get-together to celebrate my younger daughter's 13th birthday.

The cooking theme was Italian. I made antipasto, salad, soup and lasagna, with cake and ice cream for dessert. This is the recipe for the soup. If you have ever been to Eastside Mario's Restaurant, you should be familiar with this soup. I went there once and this was the part of the meal that stood out.

It's a simple soup - broth, little meatballs, acini di pepe pasta and baby spinach. I have perfected my own recipe over the years and here it is.

Italian Wedding Soup

5 cups of chicken broth - I use homemade, but low-sodium store bought works too
2 pounds of ground chicken or ground turkey
3/4 cup dry bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
salt & pepper to taste
3/4 cup acini di pepe pasta - this is small pasta that looks like ball bearings! If you can't find this kind of pasta use the smallest pasta you can find. I once used little stars!
2 - 3 cups of fresh baby spinach. If you like arugula, that also works well

Preheat the oven to 425F

Mix ground chicken, bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper together in a bowl.

Once mixture is well blended, form into small meatballs. I use a teaspoon to measure the amount of meat. They look really small, but if you're using chicken, they will actually get bigger once you cook them. Place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, single layer.
Place in the over, after 7 minutes turn. Bake about 7 more minutes. This is to brown the meatballs so they will not fall apart in the soup.

Once the meatballs are browned, add them to the stock, bring to a boil and cook on high heat for about 15 minutes. This will cook the meatball through and add more flavour to your broth. After about 15 minutes, add pasta to boiling pot. Stir constantly for about 3 -4 minutes so pasta doesn't stick. Turn heat down to medium, add baby spinach. Cover pot, wait 3 -4 minutes to wilt spinach and serve.

This will serve 4- 6 people.