Asparagus Soup

Asparagus has become one of my favorite veggies. When we were at the beach this summer my one sister, Kelly, made asparagus wrapped in bacon, and grilled it. It was awesome and I have loved this odd shaped veggie ever since. I was craving asparagus this week (weird pregnancy craving) and it was on sale for $1.99/lb, so we are having it this week. I made the soup for myself, doubting the kids would eat it. I will use 2 cups of it to make pesto pasta for dinner. They will never know (unless they read this).


Ingredients:
Extra virgin olive oil
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
2 pounds asparagus
2 cans chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon salt
pepper to taste
1/2 cup instant potatoes
1/2 cup fat free evaporated milk

Saute onion in olive oil until clear (you could just cut it up and throw it in the crock pot too, but I like sauted onion as oppossed to boiled). Cut hard bottoms off asparagus and discard. Cut the rest of the asparagus into chunks. Dump these and onion into crock pot. Add chicken broth and salt. Cook on high until onion and asparagus are soft (It took mine about 2 1/2 hours). Stir in instant potatoes (I added these because while the asparagus was cooking I took many tastes and felt like the soup needed to be thicker.) Let soup cool for a little while. Add milk. Puree in batches and pour into another pot. Add salt and pepper to taste. I used this soup to make pesto sauce for our pasta for dinner tonight too. I will post that recipe tomorrow.