Fennel Virgin and a Pot of Soup

It took me three years to muster up enough courage to buy a bulb of fennel. Normally, I steer clear of a particular set of vegetables and this licorice-flavored little veggie has always topped the list. So this week on my trip to the grocery store, I stopped at the greens isle for a minute longer and picked up a bulb of fennel. I was planning to roast it along with carrots, asparagus and make a salad but stopped myself in time. I wanted to do something more adventurous so I decided on a pot of soup (see, that is me trying my hands at subtle sarcasm).

The verdict: I loved it! I am generally not a fan of celery, the other veggie known for its licorice flavor but this was more peppery and my taste palate-friendly. Will I buy it again? For sure but this time I should find better ways to use fennel.

This is how I made my pot o’ soup…

Roasted Tomato-Fennel Soup

Ingredients:
Five Roma tomatoes, halved, seeded and cored

One medium-size head of fennel, cleaned, cored and diced into chunks

Half a huge white onion, diced into chunks

Five pods of garlic

Two Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary

One Tbsp chopped fresh thyme

One tsp fresh lemon zest

Four Tbsp low-fat cream cheese

Scant half a cup reduced fat milk

Two cups water or low-sodium vegetable stock (I used the former)

A pinch of chili flakes

Half a tsp chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (optional, recommended for heat-seekers)

One tsp brown sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

Three Tbsp good olive oil

(Phew!)

Method:
Pre-heat the oven at 400°F. Prepare two sheet trays. Arrange the tomatoes and fennel in one. Pour olive oil on the vegetables, one Tbsp of rosemary, little salt and pepper. Arrange the onions and garlic in the other sheet pan and replicate the seasoning. Roast the onions in the oven for twenty minutes and the tomatoes and fennel for ten minutes more. Once done and cooled down, transfer to the blender, add the thyme and lemon zest and blend it well.

Pour the soup in a pan and heat it. Add the rest of the flavorings, milk and water and let it come to a boil. Reduce heat and add the cream cheese and whisk it until thick and creamy. Check for seasoning. Serve with a dollop of cream cheese, a splash of olive oil and grilled cheese sandwiches. Ooh, yumm!!

Serving Size: half a cup

Total carbs: 16.9g

With sandwich: 40g

Soup up!

Yes, I am back and I missed quite a few holidays/festivals/celebrations while trying to get my groove back too. Ah well, water under the bridge. Lets move on. The good news is I am back to cooking and eating. This second trimester, I tell you, is such a breeze. An awesome time to enjoy pregnancy and all the good things it brings with it. I finally did my trip to India and what fun it was. Well, fun and so much work and travel inside my city, Madras.

So while reveling in all things home, I forgot to click as many pics as I wanted to in the beginning. That’s okay, there is always the next time. So the ones that I actually did click need to be color corrected but I am having a tough term school-wise that color correction would be a thing in my fantasy… or reserved for one of those free weekends I am dreaming about

K and I landed in a very cold Atlanta and traveled to an equally bad Alabama. Well, bad to us is around 43 deg F so I will take it. We jetlagged for about a couple of weeks, with me falling sick twice. Sick did not curb my energy and into the kitchen I went to make good food. I made this roasted broccoli and cauliflower soup with rosemary which the man deemed the best thing I’ve rustled up in the kitchen in the past three month. Poor thing!

The recipe is shamefully easy to be mentioned here so let me just give you the list of ingredients: broc, cauliflower, potato, garlic, white wine vinegar, milk, salt, pepper, rosemary, nutmeg and very little cheddar cheese.  This soup is my version of Panera Bread’s broccoli soup. And I served it with homemade croutons. Oh yum!