Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Well if you're anything like the husband and I, we LOVE Panera Bread, especially their broccoli cheddar soup. Each time we go, we always get a cup of soup with our sandwich.  So, tonight I decided to give it at try and see if I could make something similar to it. I have looked online for recipes and the one I found seemed pretty good, although I did tweak it a little bit and doubled it so we could use it as leftovers tomorrow. The recipe below will be what I used (that includes it being doubled, so if you want less then just cut it in half).

What you will need:
2 cups of half and half
2 cups of milk
1/2 cup of flour
4 cups of chicken stock
2 whole slices of onion
2 clove garlic
1/4 cup of butter
1/2 lb of fresh, chopped broccoli
1 cup of carrots chopped and shredded
1/4 tsp of cardamom
1/4 tsp of nutmeg
salt and pepper
8 oz of sharp cheddar cheese shredded
4 oz of colby jack cheese  shredded

First start out by chopping up your onion. Put the butter, onion and garlic clove in a pot to sauté it for awhile on medium heat
Once that is going, you can start to cut and chop up the broccoli and carrots.
After about 5-10 minutes, go ahead and add in the flour, milk, half and half, and chicken stock, stirring occasionally until it's almost at a boil.

Next add in the carrots and broccoli then bring it to a low heat to simmer for 20 minutes.  Then, add in the cardamom, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and cheeses and keep on a low heat for additional 10 minutes.

It's really up to you on how much of what you add in depending on what you like, but this could be a good starter.

Then enjoy!

(ignore the time stamp on these photos, I was using our smaller camera that Matt took with him during his deployment, so it's a bit off.)

Mm, soup and turkey wrap!