Cream of broccoli soup

very loosely based on a recipe in Deborah Madison’s Vegetable Soups

3 large, dense, moist potatoes (like the red ones this week)
3 cups good chicken (or other) stock
1-2 pounds broccoli (half or all of the broccoli this week, depending on how you like it)
1 onion
½ tsp marjoram
½ tsp thyme
1 bay leaf
1 big clove garlic
1½ tablespoons butter
1½ tablespoons milk
½ cup milk
1 cup grated cheddar cheese

Peel the potatoes, dice, and put in a pot with the stock and set to simmer. Add onion, chopped. Take the broccoli stems off, peel them, dice them, and add to the potatoes too. Add the herbs and minced garlic. When the potatoes are tender (10-15 minutes), remove the bay leaf and then blend in at least two batches. Blend gently and leave less than totally smooth because otherwise the potato might get gummy. Put back in a big soup pot.

Chop the broccoli florets into bite size pieces. Peter likes chunky soup so I left them on the large side of bite size.

Melt the butter, add the flour, stir for a minute or two, then slowly add the milk to basically make a milky sauce.

When you are ready to eat, heat up the potato etc. base of the soup, add the florets and cook just a minute, then add the milky sauce and grated cheese and enjoy.

Mimi - our beloved intern - does not drink milk or cheese so she had the soup without the milky sauce and cheese and it was pretty darn good that way too, she said.

Deborah Madison says to add mustard and cayenne, but I didn’t. She list curry as an option.