Back in August I found myself with a veritable truckload of asparagus and an impending road trip, which was a terrible combination. Rather than come home to limp or rotted asparagus, I blanched all of it and froze it in a few quart-sized gallon bags. Since then, those bags of asparagus have called to me when I dig through my freezer, shouting mean things like, “You really thought this was a good idea, eh! Come on, you afraid of frozen asparagus, you do-gooder who couldn’t just throw us away!”

I finally broke down and succumbed to the taunts of the preserved green sticks. I pulled out a bag and defrosted it, thinking if there was ever a time for light, fresh vegetables it was the day after the day after Thanksgiving. 

I made asparagus soup, and you should, too. What, you don’t have four pounds of well-blanched asparagus in your freezer? Good! You win the less crazy award. This will work just fine with fresh asparagus that you blanch before adding it to the soup. One more step, but feel thankful that you haven’t been wasting freezer space on questionably frozen vegetables for months. 

The leeks and garlic jazz this up, and make for a spicy soup. The little bit of cream helps the texture of the asparagus and smooths everything out a bit. Of course, I served this with a healthy helping of grated parmesan cheese and a squeeze of lemon juice. Is anything ever not improved by that on top? 

Ingredients

• One bunch of asparagus, blanched until quite bendable
• Two medium leeks, chopped into ¼ inch thick slices
• Six cloves garlic 
• 2 cups chicken stock 
• ½ cup heavy cream 
• 2 tbsp butter

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Saute the garlic and leeks until the garlic is golden brown and the leeks are quite soft. 

Add in the asparagus until it’s nearly warmed through and getting a little extra color on the outside. Be careful not to leave it in too long at this point, because it will overcook and you’ll have even uglier asparagus soup than the one I’m suggesting you make (asparagus has a magic moment when it goes from beautiful green to unpleasant green). 

Pour in chicken stock and let simmer gently. 

Use immersion blender to blend until smooth, or pour entire saucepan into your blender and blend until smooth. 

Add back to saucepan, add cream, generously grate pepper on top. Serve piping hot with a heaping of fresh grated parmesan and a squeeze of lemon juice, to brighten things up a bit.

Uncategorized freezer foods healthy recipe vegetable