Asparagus--April Vegu-cation

I am so excited to be posting today!  In an effort to eat more veggies I'm participating in a blog circle with other food lovers!  Each month we'll feature a new veggie and hopefully help you find some new and yummy recipes in the process!!

This month the vegetable was asparagus.  We like asparagus at our house and usually I just roast it in the oven with a little bit of olive oil and sea salt.  But I wanted to try something different.  I've made a couple of roasted veggie soups lately and I decided to give it a try with this ingredient as well.  I think I might want to tweak the recipe a bit but I really enjoyed this soup.  I would definitely make it again which is usually my test for whether or not to share a recipe!

Asparagus & Spinach Soup

1 bunch of asparagus

1 onion sliced

sea salt

4 cups of broth

2 cups of water

1 8 oz package of spinach

3 T lemon juice

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

1/2 cup heavy cream

salt & pepper to taste

This is a quick and easy recipe!  To start, trim your asparagus.  If you've never worked with it before, you'll want to cut off the white part at the base.  Leave the funny looking top part, it's yummy.  After you've trimmed it set it on a cookie sheet.  Cover it with the sliced onion and drizzle it all with olive oil and a little bit of sea salt.  Roast at 450 for about 5-7 minutes.

While the veggies are roasting combine your stock, water, spinach, lemon juice and red pepper flakes in a dutch oven or large pot.  If you do not like spice start with a smaller amount of red pepper flakes.  You can always add more later.

Transfer your onions and asparagus to the pot.  Bring to a boil and then simmer on low for 20 minutes with the lid on. Make sure you do leave the lid on.  Otherwise your soup with evaporate away!

If you have an immersion blender the next part is easy.  Just blend the soup in the pot!  I do not have one though so I blended mine in batches in the blender.  Be careful doing this.  If your soup is too hot it will spew out the top of your blender.  I've read this before and I didn't believe it and I was wrong.  Ha!  

Transfer your blended soup back to the pot.  Add heavy cream and salt and pepper to taste.  If you are like me you might like a stronger lemon taste and you could add an additional tablespoon of lemon at this point as well.  Just remember to taste as you go!  Simmer for 10-15 minutes and you are finished!!

The next time I make this I think I will also add a can of artichoke hearts.  I love lemon and artichoke and I love lemon and asparagus and I think the combination would be great.  I tried it with different cheeses (because I love to top soup with cheese) but didn't really find one that meshed with the taste.  Any ideas?

Now it's time for you to circle around to the other bloggers to see what they've cooked up!

Start here with Trisha at Eat Your Beets!!