Immersion blenders are great!

This weekend Bree and I made a surprisingly tasty soup using an immersion blender. This is a great kitchen gadget. It purees your food inside the bowl it is already in so that no clean dishes are dirtied. I like this because I will do almost anything to reduce the amount of dishes that need to be washed.

We saw the name "Diva soup", immediately made fun of the name, then saw the short ingredient list and thought, "Oh, okay!"

Here's what was in it:
2 parsnips
2 fennel bulbs
~4 garlic cloves
1 leek
2 cups veggie broth (we used a bouillon cube)
some thyme, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar

The parsnips, fennel, and garlic were all chopped or cubed and roasted in the oven until soft with some olive oil and a splash of balsam. The leek was sauteed until soft and put in with the heated broth. Once roasted, the veggies were put in the broth and blended until smooth.

I sliced some pieces of a baguette and, with a little extra oil and seasonings, toasted them in the already hot oven for a couple of minutes. The soup went well with the bread and I was pleasantly filled up but still not sure why it was called Diva Soup...

Note: I have seen a lot of recipes that use an immersion blender to make soups thicker. By separating a portion of soup and blending it up then adding it back into the original. Sounds good for future soupventures. Another note: I don't cook with meat but I am willing to bet that this is probably not appropriate for meaty soups. Bleh.