A Good Old Fashioned Celery Soup

What do you do with a bunch of celery? Use it in salad? or as a crunchy snack. However it's winter and that calls for soup. I decided to try an update of my Mom's recipe.

Unfortunately I didn't have it. Mine is a mashup of improvising on a recipe I found on The Daring Gourmet blog. I varied it and add whatever I could remember of the family recipe.
It starts with celery which I had in abundance from making lobster salad with the lobster balls I made last Monday.

I sliced the stalks and the heart into chunks the way my Mom did.

It was sauteed in organic butter (I know I shouldn't have this on a cirrhosis diet. but I felt it would add a rich flavor to the potage)

Half went in, (about  a quarter cup)

A third of a cup of a flour was added to create a roux with the celery. This thickens it. The Daring Gourmet called for a whole onion and garlic to also be sauteed. I nixed these and added a heaping tablespoon of onion powder by McCormick.

I let all this cook down for about ten minutes before adding an entire container of vegetable stock.

This is Acme's Signature line and it's a rich broth. Then it was Almond Coconut milk

And three cups of Almond Breeze's almond coconut blend. 

It was cooked down for another ten minutes as another dash of onion powder was added for more flavor and an extra three teaspoons of flour was added to thicken it. I didn't add salt but freshly ground pepper for more flavoring and bite.

It was a delicious hot bowl. The celery chunks cooked down for still crunchy on the inside , soft on the outside texture. There was also a lovely buttery aftertaste and a smoothness to the soup.

This celery soup, a mashup of recipes, is the perfect dish for a cold February night. Make it for dinner to ward off the chill. It's lovely and green, a reminder of Spring and summer to come.