Sunday Slow Soupers - Cream of Artichoke Soup

I can't believe that today is the last day for the Sunday Slow Soupers. We started off on November 23rd with an amazing Chestnut and Porcini soup and finish today with Ida's Cream of Artichoke. Over the past 22 weeks we have journeyed through a variety of cuisines and many of us have tried soups that we would never have made otherwise. Unusually, all of the soups were delicious - given the nature of taste you'd think that there would have been at least one that went down the drain! :-)

It has been a great and rewarding journey for the home cook!

We both liked today's soup. Because we're watching our fat in-take I didn't use cream at all - instead I replaced it with 1 % milk. I also cut the butter back by 2 tablespoons (used 1 tb). We thought that the finished soup was fine without the added fat.

Some of the other 'soupers' have commented that the soup had a 'tinny' taste from the canned artichokes - using frozen artichoke hearts would solve this. I did find that the 'canned artichoke' taste came through . .  if I could find frozen artichoke hearts here in Canada I might try them!

Cream of Artichoke Soup

For 4 to 6 servings:

3 tb butter
4 tb minced shallots
1 and a half tp flour
3 and a half cups chicken stock
3 1 lb cans of artichokes (drained)
1 cup half and half
salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter in a skillet over med heat,allowing it to brown just lightly. Add shallots and saute briefly till softened . Stir in flour and cook 2 to 3 min.

Heat stock or chicken broth in a 2 qt. saucepan.Add flour mixture, stirring constantly.Cook over medium heat until slightly thickened, about 3 to 5 min.

Puree artichokes in food processor or blender. Add thickened chicken stock and half n half. Blend thoroughly about 30 seconds.

Season with salt and pepper. Serve Hot or Cold.

Comments

[Kayte]

It's the last soup supper???? Oh, rats. I really have enjoyed and made lots of good soups from these posts. I think you should keep it going. Seriously. Oh, and I agree with canned artichokes...just say NO! Frozen ones are easy to find here...do you have them there?

[Jerry]

I have not been able to find frozen artichokes here. I bet I will have to bring some back from Niagara Falls when I next go across the border to do some shopping.

We may be done with soups but now we are moving on to salads! MMMMMM