In the early days after WLS, soups are a good thing. They can be very easy on the pouch and are one of the first ways we get some variety in our diet in the first few weeks as we transition from the liquid diet back to solid foods.
Later on, soups are not always the best thing, because they flow through the pouch too quickly and can leave you feeling hungry again pretty darn quick. But there are days where your pouch just ain’t in the best of moods, and combine that with the chilly weather we’ve had here in MN (3 inches of snow in the last week!), and soup just seemed like a good idea tonight.
You could grab something in a can or jar off the shelf, but they’re laden with sodium and usually fat and other junk we just don’t need. Besides, a decent soup really isn’t that hard to make, and if you start with a few helpers you can have a good soup in less than half-an-hour.
So that’s what I did, and for tonight’s menu – Cream(less) of Broccoli Soup.
This is based on a recipe that’s not really a recipe – it’s more of a forumla from the book How to Cook Without a Book by Pam Anderson. Very good book, I highly recommend it. The basic premise for her cream soups is you sautee some aromatics (onion, garlic, etc), add broth and vegetable, simmer untill vegetable is nice and tender, add some cream and puree. Bang, you’ve got cream of whatever soup…
I took that same basic principle and wanted to see if I could make a “cream” soup, with no cream or milk or such. Why? In a word, protein. I sort of got the idea from the NY Times food writer, Biten. He did an afredo sauce that was like 90% cauliflower and 10% cream. I tried it, andwhile it didn’t turn out great, I think it was more my technique than the recipe. So while I could have done about the same here, I wanted the protein… so I turned to beans.
Great Northerns to be precise. A nice white bean, that I was hoping once pureed would give a bit of creamy texture… and ya know.. I think it did. Here’s the run down;
What You Need
5-6 cloves garlic, chopped
2 cans Great Northern beans
1 can low sodium vegetable broth (or low sodium, low fat chicken broth)
3/4 pound broccoli
2 oz low-fat cheese
salt and pepper to taste
Open the cans of beans, drain and rinse one can, leave the other as is. Open the can of broth and have that ready. If you are using something other than a can, you want about 2 cups worth of broth. You could easily use fresh broccoli for this, just cut it up in manageable pieces. Make sure the stems are small enough to cook evenly. But really, just grab a bag of frozen, chopped broccoli. You’ll use about 3/4 of a 1 pound bag. You could also use dried beans that you cook yourself, you’ll need about 3 cups cooked beans and 1 cup additional liquid to sub for the two cans. As far as the cheese goes, use what you like. I had an open package of shredded “Italian” cheese, but cheddar would be good too.
Then go with a 2 quart pot over low to medium heat. Spray a bit of non-stick spray or use about a teaspoon of olive oil in the bottom and when heated add the garlic. You want to keep the heat a bit on the low side, you are sweating, not sauteeing. You want the flavor of the garlic to come out, not seal inside. Add both the drained and undrained cans of beans and the broth. This is going to give you about 3 cups total for liquid.
Crank the heat up to high and bring to a boil for a couple minutes before adding the broccoli. You want the beans to get really soft. Then add the broccoli, bring back to a boil. If using frozen, a couple of minutes should do. If using fresh, drop the temp to medium and simmer about 10-12 minutes until the broccoli is nice and tender.
Pull out the stick-blender and puree the whole thing right in the pot. Puree up the whole deal till it gets a fairly smooth consistency and add your cheese. Make sure you use shredded or cubed up cheese, not a big honking chunk. Stir it in to the soup until the cheese melts. If you really want it cheesey, add up to another couple ounces, up to you.
Season to taste with some salt and pepper – use white pepper if the black specks in the soup bug ya, and serve. I also like to sprinkly a bit of cayenne pepper on my soup, but that’s me.
You can easily mix this up a bit by playing around with substitutions for the garlic and broccoli. For example… leeks and potatoes, or maybe some sweet yellow onion with cauliflower? It’s easy enough to experiment with something like this, and you could also work in half-size batches. I’m planning on freezing some of my leftovers though, and since there’s no dairy, it should re-heat very well.
Oh yea, this makes about 6 cups, and between the beans and cheese, you’re looking at about 9-10 grams of protein per cup of soup. I suppose you could throw some meat in here after you puree it to add some more substance and more protein.
Do you have a break down? I have been a serious dumper as of late and hate pain.
I can’t imagine there’s much sugar… starches would depend on what vegetable you use, but if you can handle the beans or the vegetable separately… I would think you’d be ok.