Soup! Make an Easy, Healthy, Kid-friendly Carrot Vichyssoise

Today we're making soup! This particular soup is a carrot vichyssoise. This particular version is easy, quick, and cheap..and warm.

It has some great things going for it:
1. Sounds fancy! and French! Well, it isn't really french in origin, but was invented at the Ritz, so that makes it fancy, right!? (By the way, it's pronounced 'vishee-swahz', sounds like 'fishy bras')
2. Easy, quick and inexpensive to make.
3. Kid friendly way of getting them to eat their vegetables. I serve this with cheddar cheese on top, and call it "Cheese Soup" and my 3 yr old is happy!
4. Soup is great on a cold day to warm you up! Well, technically, vichyssoise should be served cold, but I like it hot. Especially in cold weather. But in the summer, this works great as a cold soup too, nice for brunch!

This is based on my mom's recipe, with some changes of my own..
(If you want to go vegan, just sub veggie broth for the water & bouillon cubes)

There are fancier and less short-cutty ways to make soup like this, but this recipe is intentionally simple to be tasty, easy, and cheap!

So let's make Soup!

Dot
Dabbled.org

Ingredients:

A)
4 c Potatoes, chunked
3 c Carrots, chunked
1 small onion (or about 1/2 c) sliced (or 3 leeks, thinly sliced, white part - Leeks are more authentic, but I never have leeks on hand so I always use onion)
1 1/2 teas salt
6 chicken bouillon cubes
3 3/4 c hot water

B)
2 Tbs butter
1 1/2 c (12 oz) light cream or evaporated milk (evaporated milk is healthier option)
1 1/2 c (12 oz) milk
1/2 teas tabasco

Hardware:

Pressure Cooker (faster) or Large Pot
Food processor, blender, or hand blender

Take ingredient set A, and place in pressure cooker or large pot.

If you have a pressure cooker, heat on high til the thing on top jiggles, then turn down to low and cook for 6 minutes.

If you don't have a pressure cooker, that's fine, just put in a large pot and cook over med high heat until the veggies are soft (20-30 min, just check occasionally with a fork). It will just take longer, and you may need to add additional liquid later.

When it's cooked, you should still have a good amount of liquid in there, see picture.

After your veggies are soft, you'll want to puree everything together, including the liquid.

There are several ways to do this.

The easiest is one of those immersion hand blenders -- if you have one of those, just stick it in the pot and blend everything together, and you should be able to blend it all with very little work and no transferring out of the pot.

I don't have one of those, so I do it all in the food processor. It takes about batches to get it all blended into a nice soupy consistency (see picture).
You can also use a blender -- most everyone has those, right?
Pour everything back in the pot, and stir.

Now, add the ingredient set B to the pot.

Stir together, mixing well. The hot mixture should melt your butter for you.

You can either serve this soup hot or cold.

If cool is desired, chill prior to serving. You can grate a little fresh nutmeg on top for an interesting flavor.

If you like it hot, simply heat the mixture back up to soup temperature before serving.
For the hot soup, I like to serve it with grated cheddar cheese to sprinkle on top. Kids love this, and it's a nice flavor combination.

For my particular picky child, we call this "Cheese Soup", because it's cheesy in color, and after you sprinkle the cheese on top, it has a nice cheesy flavor.

This makes a nice amount. -- 9-10 servings maybe.