Soup On Tuesday: Week 4

Another winter Tuesday, another soup night.  This week, I made a "copy cat" recipe based on the Broccoli Cheddar soup that my husband has enjoyed several times at Panera Bread.    

We all decided that this one is not a repeat.  While it was loaded with vitamins (carrots, onions, and a generous amount of broccoli) and flavor (the broccoli flavor was pronounced), it was also loaded with fat.  I am not typically a low-fat kind of cook.  (I should be, but I am not.)  But this soup was too rich for me.  If I were to make it again, I would probably reduce the amount of cheese by half. 

The real success of the night were the French baguettes that Kati made to accompany the soup!

Remember last week when I hinted to the resident baker that it would be nice to have some homemade bread with our soup?  Well, this morning I reminded her.  And then when I began to cook dinner tonight, I asked her what she had decided, thinking that she must be planning to make muffins or some sort of quick bread since she had not yet begun.  Gasp! (from Kati)...she had forgotten my request.  She did a quick Google search (the word "fast" was one of her search terms) and announced that she was going to make Fast French Baguettes. 

I must confess that I doubted that we would be having hot yeast bread by the time the soup was ready...but she surprised me!  She substituted rapid rising yeast for regular, allowed the dough to rise in a warmed oven, and shortened a bit of the rise time.*  And the bread was ready before the soup!

Tonight's soup...and bread...

Click ~here~ for soup recipe.  Click ~here~ for bread recipe.

Have you ever tried a "copy cat" recipe?  Did you think it was as good as the restaurant version?

* Note: Kati also substituted some whole wheat pastry flour for some of the white flour, but, of course, that had no effect on the speed. ~smile~