Asparagus Potato Soup and Fried Apples

This morning I spent a fair amount of time looking up asparagus soup recipes.  I found several that looked pretty good, but I either did not have all of the ingredients or they contained foods we do not eat.  I combined ideas from several recipes and came up with this:

Asparagus Soup
1 bunch asparagus, cut into chunks
3 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 small yellow onion, sliced
4 cups of homemade chicken stock
fresh cracked pepper
sea salt
garlic infused olive oil

Sauté garlic and onion in the garlic infused olive oil until both are tender.

Boil asparagus in chicken stock for about 5 minutes.

Place garlic, onion, asparagus and chicken stock into your blender with a couple turns of fresh cracked pepper and sea salt.  Blend until everything is smooth.  I used a Vitamix and it only took a little over a minute.

This makes about 7 cups of soup.  And I imagine that it freezes well. 

I poured the soup into my bowl and ate it.  Quickly.  It was delicious.  Even though it lacked cheese, cream soup mix, and potatoes, the taste reminded me of my Grandma's very delicious cheesy potato soup.  I have not had that in years.  But it gave me and idea.  So here is what I did....

Asparagus Potato Soup
1 recipe Asparagus Soup (for the base)
3 potatoes, peeled and cubed
bacon, baked and crumbled

Pour the asparagus soup into a large saucepan.  Pour in potatoes.  Boil until potatoes are tender.  If you need more liquid, add more chicken stock.

Top with crumbled bacon.

Yum.  Although I will say I was sad to go back and look up Asparagus Potato Soup on Pinterest and come back with a million hits.  Here I thought I was on to something new....

As I was transforming the asparagus soup into asparagus potato soup, I decided that I also needed some fried apples.  These are not anything like my Grandma's fried apples - pan fried in butter with sugar and cinnamon, they were delicious but not really healthy...and besides, we are dairy free.

I make fried apples the same way I make applesauce, except I do not mash them up! 

Fried Apples
apples (I used honeycrisp and sweetango because that is what was in my fridge!)
cinnamon to taste
a dash of brown sugar
a small scoop of coconut oil

Peel and slice the apples.  Toss them in a saucepan with the coconut oil, cinnamon, and brown sugar. 

Cover with a lid and cook until the apples are tender.

Now that is what I call a fabulous fall meal.  :) 

And since this soup is far from photogenic, I will leave you with a picture from our weekend.  Cheese!!

 

Cheers!!