Veggie Chowda

You've all seen it and cringed.  Someone famous says "my children are my inspiration" and you want to gag.  Overused, cringe-worthy.
This however, is totally George's inspiration/fault/something.
Many of you are familiar with my knock-off Panera Broccoli Cheddar Soup recipe.  (Do you know that I never spell Broccoli right the first time?)  Well last week I added some shredded carrots to the soup.  The next day George was eating some leftovers for dinner, and I noticed that the shredded carrots were kinda bugging him.  (Too small to chew, but still he thought he had to.)  That particular evening his dinner also consisted of mashed carrots.  Well, grown ups sometimes play with food too.  I mixed the two together.  I immediately loved the color.  Fine reasoning, no?  Last night it evolved into a new, and very tasty chowder.

Here is how it started...

Ingredients:

4T butter

1/4 c flour

4 c milk (I used 1%)

1c shredded cheddar

4 smallish sweet potatoes

2 white potatoes

A bunch of carrots (1lb?)

Whole bag of frozen broccoli

1/2 bag cut leaf spinach

pepper

• Peel and chunk fresh veggies
• Cook in pressure cooker for 10 minutes with 1/2c water.  
• If you don't have a pressure cooker---get one!  Mine is from the 70s and is a joy to have in the kitchen.  If that's not happening right now, roast these in the oven until mashable.
• While the pressure cooker is doing it's thing, start on the roux. 
• Melt the butter over medium heat
• Add the flour and whisk until incorporated
• SLOWLY add the milk, (ie 1/2c at a time) whisking to fully incorporate.
• Once all the milk is added let cook about 5 minutes, stirring regularly but not constantly.
• Add cheese and pepper and stir to combine.  
• Put the spinach and broccoli in the microwave for 5 minutes.
• I used a "premium" broccoli this time with a lot of big pieces, you may wish to cut these into spoon size bites.
• When the fresh veggies are done and pressure has dropped, mash away.  This will be a quick process as they will be very tender. Don't be overly picky either, a few chunks is just fine.
• Add all the veggies to the milk mixture and let cook for a few minutes.
• Ladle into a few bowls and voila 

The boys ate this up well.  With the sweet potatoes and carrots it almost tasted a little "squashy" but balanced.  W isn't a sweet potato fan as a rule, but still came back for seconds.  I may make the white to sweet ratio 1:1 next time.

The best part??  There were leftovers!  Guess what I'm having for breakfast??