I discovered this soup when looking for ways to use up an excess of celery. It makes an elegant lunch or first course for a special dinner. It would have been wonderful with a slice of crusty bread or croutons.
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Supplies:
1 head celery
1 onion
4-5 cloves garlic
6-8 baby Yukon Gold potatoes
3 Tbsp oil or butter
3 Tbsp flour
1 package blue cheese (5 oz.)
1/2 apple juice
2 cups vegetable stock
3/4 cup half and half
salt, pepper and paprika, to taste.
Steps:
Chop entire head of celery in very short sections. Larger sections may leave long strings in your soup, even after cooking and blending. Chop onions and potatoes, and mince garlic.
Heat butter in a stockpot. Add vegetables and sauté until softened but not browning, about 5 minutes.
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Add about half the blue cheese, apple juice and stock. Bring just to a boil then simmer the soup until the vegetables are very soft, 20-30 minutes.
Transfer soup to a blender or use an immersion blender to pureé the mixture. If you wish to skip this step, it's just as delicious with larger pieces of vegetable.
Put the mixture back in the stockpot and rewarm it with the remaining blue cheese crumbles and half and half. You can also save the remaining blue cheese to add directly to the serving of soup.