Monday, March 13, 2006

Mimosa Soup

Sometimes you reach a point where you've just had too much. Too much sugar, too much fat, too much everything. This is a good soup for when you've reached that point, and need something to make you feel cleansed.

This recipe comes from a book I'm a little embarrassed to own (it's about those damn French women and how they don't get fat, okay?). In the book, it is prescribed as a diet aid--eat nothing but this soup for nearly two days to jumpstart a new "programme". I usually just have it for lunch and snacks for a couple of days. It is bland, but in a comforting way. My recipe deviates from the original slightly, I added some salt (illegal!), a bit of chicken stock, and broccoli. Because I love broccoli.


Mimosa Soup
serves 1 for a couple of days

1 small head lettuce
several handfuls baby carrots
1 broccoli crown
1 small head cauliflower
1 turnip
1 large leek
1 c. chicken stock
sea salt
freshly ground pepper
.5 cup chopped parsely
hard boiled eggs


Clean and chop all vegetables in rough pieces and put them in a pot, except for the cauliflower and parsely. Add chicken stock and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and simmer, uncovered, for 35 minutes. Add the cauliflower and parsley and cook for another 10 minutes. Use salt and pepper to taste (remember, light on the salt!)


Puree in a blender in batches. Serve drizzled with a little olive oil and a chopped hard boiled egg. Not the prettiest soup in the world, but very light, filling, and terribly healthy.

7 comments:

Skeezix said...

Hard boiled eggs in soup? That sounds a little crazy.

And I wonder where the heck they came up with the name of mimosa soup? Unless is contains a part of the tree or is swilled down with that delicious concoction of champange and orange juice I think it is a misnomer.

I remember about 2 years ago I did a 'detox' where I had no seasoning or oil or really anything but veggies and some meat. It was hell, yet I feel compelled to try it again some time.

Marianne said...

It's weird, isn't it (both the eggs and the name)? I guess "Grey-Green Sludge" just didn't have the same ring.

LE said...

Aw, rats. I thought this would be a delightful Sunday brunch soup with champagne.

I am oddly drawn to the boiled egg topping.

Marianne said...

Maybe I should change the name? It is very misleading. Champagne soup sounds much better.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I have the book this recipe came from and I'd tried the leek soup but just found it far too disgusting to try to drink a cup of leek-water every 2 hours, so I moved on to the Mimosa. I came online looking for a post where someone could tell me whether or not you're supposed to drain the water off the vegetables and I stayed on your site to check out some of the other delicious recipes you had here. My soup turned out delicious and I thought I'd come back and post the changes in case anyone wants to try again. So, my soup did not turn out as green-grey sludge, or even green. I used iceburg lettuce (the whole thing), only the white part of the leeks (as per her Leek Soup), and several carrots, turnips, and the celeriac (which I've never seen before now). I added a whole head of cauliflower with probably a teaspoon of salt and one packet of beef Oxo (at ten calories I figured I could afford it). I don't have a food mill or blender, so I scooped all the veggies into a big bowl, mashed em a little with a potatoe masher, then ran my mixer through them a few times adding ladles full of broth as I saw fit. I ended up with a chunky, light orange/white soup. The eggs were the perfect accompaniment, though I'll never add parsley again and lost a good 5 minutes picking the parsley out of my first bowl. Anyway, I thought it was fantastic, but I'm strange.

Anonymous said...

I'm the same anonymous from before, I saw your post about recieving loads of spam e-mail. But I'd like to send you a photo of the mimosa soup I made if that's cool. Let me know if you have somewhere I can send it to.

Thanks for posting my comments too!

Amber

Marianne said...

Amber, you can email me at:

marianne at the unemployedcook dot com

Thanks!