Heartier Cream of Spinach Soup

A couple of weeks back, Ryan had a bad toothache.  He went to see Kevin the dentist, who said he had his choice: root canal on his back molar, and have the wisdom tooth below it pulled a year or 2 from now, or have the back molar pulled now, and let the wisdom tooth slide right into its place.  You guessed correctly that he chose the second option.

So, for two nights, Ryan suffered with his bad molar, and we all ate soft foods in solidarity with our suffering son/brother.  One of those nights, I made up a big batch of cream of spinach soup, with a bit less fat and more substance, in hopes of keeping the poor boy filled up through the night.  (There was enough left for him to have for lunch the next day, but barely.)

CREAM OF SPINACH SOUP

1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
8 cups water
3 tbsp chicken base
1 cup white rice
2 cups frozen chopped spinach
2 cups whole milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
20 turns ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a large stock pot at medium heat; add the onion and garlic, and cook until soft.  Add the water and chicken base (or use chicken broth) and heat to a boil.  Add the rice and cook for 30 minutes.  Add the spinach and cook for another 5 minutes.  Add the milk, return to a simmer, and lightly puree with a hand blender or put through the blender or food processor in small batches (I leave some texture in my pureed soups).  Return to the heat, add the nutmeg, pepper and cream and heat through.  Serve with soft rolls.

The rice thickened up the soup nicely and added some heft to it, plus, it reduced the need for milk and cream, making this soup more "heart friendly" for some of us around here.  It was delicious.  If the weather weren't finally warming up around here, I do expect that Ryan would be campaigning for me to make this soup again, regardless of the fact that his mouth is healed.

Have a great weekend, everyone!