— Noted.

Recipe: blended soups.

Right around the time my cousin gave me a new Cuisinart stock pot for xmas, I bought this nifty hand blender to start making some soups. The amazing thing about the blender is you can blend just about anything into creamy goodness without needing to add cream. This one also has attachments to chop and whip, which is perfect for making pesto, hummus and fresh whipped cream. As someone who has an open kitchen with a pantry that is half of my coat closet, you could say I’m a bit timid about adding any kitchen tool that is in any way unnecessary. I’m glad this one made the cut!

Here are a few of the recipes I liked the best:

Sweet potato, kale & corn chowder

The recipe & photo from the blog: A House in the Hills.

Chestnut soup

Recipe from Fine Cooking. I did a lot of poking around to figure out whether cream is better for this soup. Mark Bittman says no, and he was right. It is crazy creamy delicious.

Photo by Evan Sung, NYTimes

Tomato bisque with fresh goat cheese

This is the easiest recipe ever, with ingredients you are likely to already have in your pantry and fridge (or freezer if you’re like me and freeze your fresh ginger). I only put in half of the goat cheese when I made the soup, and then added a tad to my individual bowl since I knew I would be having leftovers. But actually, even if I made this for multiple bowls, I think it’s nice (in taste and presentation) to have the half-melted goat cheese swirl on top for each.

Balthazar’s cream of mushroom

Recipe and photo from Smitten Kitchen. Ok, for this recipe, I substituted whole milk for cream and I think that was a mistake. It was still delicious, just a bit thin. Follow the recipe and I’m sure it will be perfection in a bowl.