Recipe Wednesday: Creamy Roasted Garlic Soup

A note from Esther: Hi, friends. I’m sorry this has taken so long to get up. You’d think that surely on one of those three previous weeks I would have remembered to start this but…well, here I am now. Hopefully I can remember in the future to get these posted! Today’s recipe looks scrumptious. I’ll have to remember to try it some day. God bless, and keep cooking for the King’s glory!

Creamy Roasted Garlic Soup

Submitters comment: This is a favorite recipe of our family’s. I have no idea where we picked it up from but it’s delicious.
 
Ingredients:

• 8 Tbsp. butter (one stick) 
• ½ onion, chopped 
• 6 entire heads of roasted garlic, skins removed (see note below) 
• ¾ cup flour 
• 6 cups homemade chicken broth 
• 1 tsp. Italian seasoning (see note below) 
• 1 tsp. sea salt 
• ¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper 
• 1 cup cream or milk 
• Olive oil, balsamic vinegar and grated Parmesan cheese (optional garnishes)

Preparation:
Melt the butter in a medium size saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and saute for 5 minutes. Add all of the roasted garlic cloves and saute for 5 minutes more. Add the flour and stir thoroughly to combine. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes or until the flour is a light golden color. Add the broth one cup at a time, stirring and incorporating very well after each addition. Add Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Bring soup to a simmer and allow to cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Puree soup with an immersion blender or, if you don’t have one, in a regular blender in small batches. However you do it, make sure the soup returns to the saucepan and turn on the heat to low. Add cream. Stir and make sure the soup is thoroughly warmed. Taste it and adjust the spices to your taste. Serve garnished with Parmesan cheese, and drizzle of olive oil, and a splash of balsamic vinegar, if you wish. Any one or all of these make good additions to the soup.

Enjoy!

Notes:

To roast your garlic heads cut about ¼ – ½ of an inch off the top of the head exposing the individual heads. (If you don’t see some of the lower cloves, that’s alright, you can fish them out later, just make sure that most of them are showing.)

Remove any of the excess papery skin, but make sure you don’t remove it all! Put the heads top side down in a small pan and drizzle generously with olive oil, roast in a 375°F (191°C) oven for 40 – 45 minutes until garlic is golden brown but not burnt (I’ve done that a few times!). Once it is done, allow it to cool unless you are like me and don’t mind burnt fingers! Then squeeze the garlic cloves out from the skin. They should come out very easily. And that’s all there is to it!
 
The recipe for Italian seasoning is as follows.

• 1 ½ tsp. garlic powder
• 1 Tbsp. onion powder
• 2 tsp. oregano
• 1 Tbsp. dried parsley
• 2 tsp. sea salt
• 1 tsp. pepper
• ¼ tsp. thyme
• ½ tsp. dried celery flakes

Shake all ingredients together and store in a jar. This is also a good recipe to use in vinaigrette salad dressings and to season meatballs and sausage. Or anything else you think it might go with!
 
Also if you have a family of ten like I do six cups of soup is not going to be enough, so just add broth until the soup level is up to the point where you know it will be enough to feed your family. Then just add a little extra flour. If it clumps up a little, don’t worry that will disappear when you blend the soup. And adding a little more broth does not dilute the soup. Garlic goes a long way!

May God bless you as you cook for Him!
Christianna