Creamy Celery Soup

It appears that cooler weather will be with us for at least the next week, although it doesn’t need to be cold for me to soup it up. The celery is in it’s prime right now and soup presents a good opportunity to use the whole bunch since the leaves are the most nutritious part. I had a bunch of leeks that were gifted to me from a friend and a few Yukon potatoes leftover from last week’s box, so the vegetables were well-aligned for this recipe, but I do give alternatives below if you don’t have leeks or potatoes.

Did you know that you can put in a Farmside Pickup order to coincide with your box pick up and add things from the farm stand to compliment your box? I have been loving the fresh garlic that we get from Gilroy, so I recommend grabbing some of that for your recipes!

The basic veggie ingredients:

• One bunch of celery
• 2-3 large leeks or 1 large onion
• 2-3 Yukon gold potatoes or 2 cups of cauliflower florets
• 4-5 garlic cloves or to your own taste

The other stuff:

• 1 stick of butter (if you are vegan you can sub in vegan butter or a 3-4 tablespoons of Olive Oil)
• 2-4 cups of broth (I used Veggie broth I buy from Dave’s Gourmet Korean Food at the Calabasas Farmers Market, you can visit our booth there too!), using a lower sodium broth is probably best, you can sub in some water as well
• Fresh or dried herbs to taste, here’s some ideas, dill, tarragon, thyme, I used about a tablespoon of homemade dried Herbs de Provence which included thyme, marjoram, savory, rosemary, tarragon, basil, mint and lavender
• If you like a little kick in things, I also added a pinch of red pepper flakes

Garnishes:

• some chopped celery leaves
• a generous amount of chopped parsley, I used our Italian parsley

Chop all your veggies up in smaller pieces, especially the celery so you don’t have stringy celery soup. Melt or heat butter or oil in a large soup pot. Add all the veggies and sauce on medium heat until the celery and potatoes or cauliflower start to get soft. You can also add your dry seasonings at this stage and cook with the veggies.

Add enough broth to come to the top of the veggies, I used 2 cups and it was perfect. If you add too much, your soup might be too thin. You can always thin it out at the end! Cook for 10-15 minutes until the potatoes are soft.

You can eat it rustic style or use an immersion blender (my go to) or dump it in a blender to create a smooth soup. Add in your garnishes and any other seasonings to your liking.