Today was our first beautiful winter day. We are in that wonderful week between Christmas and New Year’s, where the people who are working aren’t really working too hard and finally we got some snow. After 15 minutes of bundling up a toddler and myself, we headed out to play.
For now anyway, I can say I am loving winter…I only wish that feeling could last through March. When we came in to make some hot chocolate, I threw together a 5 minute pot of asparagus soup.
I feel a little guilty about how elegant this soup looks with the drizzle of truffle oil….I practically made it out of nothing. In my freezer I found a bunch of asparagus ends I had saved from last spring, a tub full of chicken stock I had simmered from the bones of my last rotisserie chicken, and one lonely potato starting to sprout.
I threw it all in a sauce pot with a little salt and pepper, let it simmer until the potato was soft and threw it all in the blender. I strained it, added a touch of cream and I had lunch. A little Parmesan cheese and a drizzle of truffle oil made me forget about its freezer start, it was pretty tasty.
Winter changes my cooking from fresh and light to hardy and hot. It turns gardening time into knitting (after 5 pairs of mittens for Christmas gifts, I’m finally making one for myself. I used this pattern). As much as I dislike winter by mid February, I wouldn’t trade the changing seasons for anything.
Ingredients
- asparagus ends
- 1 potato, cut into large chunks
- 2 c chicken stock (enough to cover asparagus and potato)
- a pinch of salt, pepper, and any Italian type seasoning mix
- 1/4 c heavy cream or half&half
- truffle oil and Parmesan cheese shavings to garnish
Instructions
- In a medium sized sauce pot, add asparagus trimmings, potato, stock, salt, pepper and seasoning and simmer about 30 minutes or until the potato is tender
- Transfer all to blender (in batches) and puree as much as possible
- Press puree through a wire strainer, it takes awhile to really get as much through as possible pressing with a spoon, discard the fibrous pulp that won't go through
- Add the strained puree back to the pot, add cream and simmer 5 or 10 minutes
- Garnish with truffle oil and Parmesan cheese shavings