With St. Patrick’s Day celebrations only a few days away (or starting today and lasting into the wee hours of Sunday night 😉 – I thought I would present you with a green soup to mark the occasion.

A lot of St. Patrick Day festivities involve heavy or fried food served with an abundance of Guinness or green beer. This recipe will offer you a healthy green alternative that you can easily work into your regular recipe rotation.

This soup is incredibly easy. All you have to do is steam up some broccoli, cauliflower and potatoes (hey, this is for an Irish celebration after all) and then purée the vegetables and add in stock until it is the desired consistency. That is it!

I made this in two batches, as my steamer doesn’t quite hold enough vegetables to make four servings. For each batch I steamed two cups each of chopped broccoli and cauliflower along with one medium potato. Once they were soft (I was able to pierce them with a fork) I transferred them to a soup pot and steamed another batch of vegetables.

The great thing about steaming your vegetables instead of boiling them is that they get to keep their colour and the flavour doesn’t get watered down. Steaming is definitely my preferred method for this simple dish.

After all the vegetables had been cooked through, I took out my immersion blender and puréed everything together. This was good on its own, but the addition of chicken stock transformed this from puréed vegetables into thick, delicious chowder.

I am not someone who eats a lot of cheese, but I do know that a cheese sauce is a very common addition to broccoli and cauliflower. Jamie picked up some locally produced cheddar cheese and we shredded this with our grater to serve on top of our soup.

Now, of course, there is no way such a delicious and flavourful soup would ever get served in our home without the addition of crispy, tasty bacon! This soup was the perfect excuse for the bacon to hit the frying pan. I cooked up seven strips of bacon to serve with four bowls of soup. Once you account for the amount of “sampling” that I did, each bowl likely got about one generous piece of crispy goodness 🙂  Not only did the bacon provide flavour, but it also added another layer of texture against the creaminess of the soup.

Enjoy your weekend, and be sure to kiss someone who is Irish, as it will bring you good luck!

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Adapted from:
Practical Paleo – Broc-Cauli Chowder with Bacon
Diane Sanfilippo, BS, NC

Ingredients:

• 4 cups broccoli, chopped and steamed
• 4 cups cauliflower, chopped and steamed
• 2 medium potatoes, chopped and steamed
• 2 cups chicken broth
• Salt and pepper
• Crispy bacon
• Cheddar cheese

Directions:

1. Chop and steam your vegetables and place in large pot.  Using an immersion blender, liquify the vegetables.  Add in the chicken stock until it is your desired consistency (ours was pretty thick, and we used 2 cups of stock).  Add in salt and pepper to taste.
2. Garnish with shredded cheddar cheese and crispy bacon.
3. Add more bacon and enjoy 🙂