Monday, September 29, 2008

Broccoli Chowder

Broccoli Chowder

I love soup. And I love bread with my soup. Those bread bowls at Panera? Best. Thing. Ever. Too bad the bowl (minus the freaking soup) is 590 calories.

Every time I make a batch of soup I have the best intentions to make a batch of homemade rolls. I have a bread maker that would do most of the work for me, but I’m still not able to get my act together.

So when I found these Alexia whole grain rolls at my local health food store, I nearly peed myself in the aisle. They’re whole wheat, made with ingredients I can pronounce, are individually frozen and heat up in only 8 minutes in the oven. Best yet, they’re 90 calories, 1 gram of fat, and 2 grams of fiber – that’s 1 point if you’re counting. They’re so awesome I nearly grabbed a second one, but luckily was able to reign myself in a bit.

That left me plenty of points to make this Broccoli Chowder and still use the whole milk it called for. Skim milk just doesn’t cut it in soups. Creamy soups need to be creamy… not watery and separated looking. Plus whole milk just tastes really, really good. In this recipe it’s only ¼ cup per serving – not so bad points-wise. Only swap I made was center-cut bacon instead of regular.

And this soup was fantastic. I’m not usually a fan of broccoli in my soup. I’ve gagged on cream of broccoli or broccoli cheddar soups more times than I can count. No matter how hard I fight it, I still have a lingering dislike for the vegetable.

The boyfriend loves broccoli. So this was a nice compromise. There was plenty of potatoes and corn (yay carbs!) to keep me interested and enough broccoli to keep him happy. Oh, and it reheated well, too, which is essential because it made one gigantic pot of soup, and it's only 6 points for four large bowls! Lastly, to make it less chunky I processed it a bit with my immersion blender to give it a thicker consistency. Yum!

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