Sharing Recipe: Fall Spinach Goat Cheese Bisque

I was really missing my girlfriend Mippa today, and I thought of how we enjoyed apple and goat cheese salads at Grand Luxe cafe around this time last year.  So, I decided to make a lovely bowl of spinach goat cheese bisque, which was really good!  I adapted the recipe from one that I saw in Eating Well magazine. 

Ingredients

2 tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1/2 Yellow Onion, diced

1-2 Garlic Cloves, minced

Salt, Pepper to taste

1 tsp dried dill/thyme

1 medium Yukon Gold Potato (peeled & diced)

1/8-1/4 tsp nutmeg

2 tsp sherry cooking wine (or marsala)

2 Cups Unsalted Vegetable Stock

1/2 clamshell baby organic spinach

1 T light butter

1/2 cup light goat cheese crumbles

croutons for garnish

Cooking Directions
1. Heat olive oil in a skillet and cook for about 5 minutes until onions start to brown.
2. Add minced garlic cloves to the onions.
3. Reduce heat under onions, add 2 T water, dill, and thyme. Cover onions and cook for about 20-25 minutes to caramelize.  Stir often, but make sure to return the cover afterwards.
4. In a pot, heat 2 cups of water, add 1/4 tsp salt and bring to a boil. Add the potato and cook 12-15 minutes until potato is very soft and most of the water has evaporated. Do not drain potato.
5. Add nutmeg and sherry to the caramelized onions and cook for a few minutes longer.
6. To the cooked potato pot, add the caramelized onion mixture, vegetable stock, and spinach.  Bring to a slow boil and heat until the spinach withers down but is still bright green in color.
7. Transfer the contents from the pot into a Vitamix blender (or you can use an immersion blender).  Add the butter and goat cheese and blend until smooth and bright green in color.
8. Return to the pot and add salt & pepper to taste as needed.
9. Serve in soup bowls with croutons and a sprinkle of crumbled goat cheese.
Soup should keep for about 3 days refrigerated.

This was very filling, flavorful, and made a lovely dinner on a chilly autumn evening.
Sorry - I gobbled mine up before I could take a picture :-). I borrowed the one from Eating Well magazine.  My soup was blended a more smoothly. The flavor was really incredible.

Approximate Nutritional Breakdown:
Per serving: 147 calories; 7 g fat ( 3 g sat , 3 g mono ); 11 mg cholesterol; 17 g carbohydrates; 0 g added sugars; 5 g protein; 4 g fiber; 447 mg sodium; 514 mg potassium.


Enjoy!