Recipe Test: Cold Asparagus Soup

Credit: alive.com

Click here for full recipe

INGREDIENTS:

• Olive oil
• Yellow onion
• Chicken or Vegetable Stock
• Asparagus
• Lemon
• Salt & Pepper
• Cayenne pepper
• Lemon zest
• Shrimp 

Since we both loved the broccoli soup so much when I saw this one for Cream of Asparagus Soup with Shrimp I was like "oh yes!" ... it's spring which means great asparagus has hit the store.  But it is still cold & rainy here in Nebraska so soup sounded awesome.   

Of course by the time I made the recipe it was a beautiful day and soup sounded wintery.  BUT I saw a little note about how this can be served hot or cold.  I tasted it when it was still warm and decided it would be even better cold so in the fridge it went!

I didn't have any homemade stock left so I picked up some at whole foods.  Sadly I got lazy and didn't read the ingredients.  Later I saw this blog from 'My Whole Food Life' comparing the low sodium version of this brand to another kind.   DAMN!  I should have looked at the label!   

See the whole article here but these two shots from will show you why I'm kicking myself.  Here's the ingredients for the Whole Foods 360 Brand: 

Photo Credit: mywholefoodlife.com

And just down the isle I could have found this Pacific Foods stock had I just looked:

Photo Credit: mywholefoodlife.com

Well ... I have one more box of it in my pantry that I'll use on a recipe this week but I WILL remember this next time I go to the store.  Though I'm a few months into a real foods lifestyle I'm still no expert - can't get cocky! 

Alright so back to the recipe...  I would have sworn that in both the broccoli soup and this one that there was some kind of dairy or cream but there isn't!   What they do both have - ONION!  God bless onions.   Of course you pay for it while chopping them & crying.  I'm starting to think one of those infomercial chopper things isn't a bad investment considering how often I'm cooking with onions and crying ... oh and yes I've just bought a big box of band-aids since I've accidentally cut myself a couple of times.   ALWAYS with the damn onions!  

After throwing in the rest of the ingredients and letting it simmer to get soft I put it in my trusty blender and pushed power ...

zzzzzt ....

Well that was a strange noise ... why isn't the bade spinning?  Unplug ... replug.  Hit power again.

Nada ... other than a strange burnt odor coming from the blender.   Yep ... my blender went to small appliance heaven before I'd gotten the soup done!  DAMN!  Well ... I still had my food processor so whipped that out ...

And learned why you don't put liquids in food processors as the broth ran out the sides and bottom!   I quickly salvaged it by throwing it back into the pot.   Once I cleaned up all the broth I strained out the onions and asparagus and put those in the food processor to puree THEN threw them back in the broth and stirred it all up.   PAIN IN THE ASS but it worked!

Once it cooled completely I garnished with cooked cold shrimp and there you have it!

It is good.  Lemony flavor comes out quite a bit.  This isn't something I'd make on a regular basis but it was worth trying.   Of course I could have told you how EASY it was if it weren't for the blender mishap.   

RIP blender ... time to go shopping for a new one!