Cheesy Sunchoke & Broccoli Soup

We currently have a surplus of sunchokes aka Jerusalem artichokes.  My husband, Dylan, volunteers down at our community garden in our neighborhood. Sunchokes are extremely easy to grow and we literally had an overflowing 5 gallon bucket, Yeah that's right, a 5 gallon bucket of these things!  

This recipe is basically a potato soup using sunchokes as a substitute. So if you have a favorite potato soup recipe just substitute sunchokes, or instead of using my sunchoke recipe make yourself a potato soup. Whatever suits ya!

I just kinda make stuff up as I go, so I feel like you can be pretty loose when it comes to soup, just throw a bunch of stuff in a pot and you got a soup!

This recipe makes about 6 quarts of soup. That's a lot I know, I like to have work lunches for the week, plus my husband is a human garbage disposal, so having extra never hurts. haha

Ingredients:

3 lb.s of sunchokes sliced

3 stalks of celery chopped

1 large red onion chopped

3 cloves of garlic chopped

1/4 c. butter

1/2 c. corn starch

2 medium size heads of broccoli, florets chopped

2 boxes of organic gluten free vegetable broth

3 cups water

one 16 oz. log of Velveeta cheese diced

Salt and Pepper to taste.

any other veggies you'd like to throw in

Topping:

Sour cream

Green onions

Bacon bits 

Shredded cheese.

1. Slice your sunchokes, skins on, and celery and put it in a pot to boil until its soft and mash-able. Drain and mash. I wanted a smoother consistency so I threw it in the food processor with some of the broth. 

2. While your chokes are boiling, chop onion and garlic and put in a large pot with butter. Saute till the purple in the onion starts to fade then slowly add the corn starch stirring it in and adding broth as you go. 

sidenote: I used Land o' Lakes butter, we recently found out that they are a cooperative. We like to support co-ops and sustainability.  

3. Mix the sunchokes into the big pot, stir, add the rest of the broth, water, broccoli, and diced velveeta. Stir and let cheese melt. When the broccoli florets are soft then it's ready to serve! 

Top with a dollop of sour cream, shredded cheese, chopped green onions and some bacon bits and you have a tasty warm soup for a gloomy day.

Fridays are usually our date days, my husband was working all day yesterday so I brought him some soup and tea to have a little midday picnic and warm him up.

  

There you have it! Pour yourself some sweet tea and relax.

-Zon