Corn Soup and a Cool Gadget

I got a gift card to Crate and Barrel for Christmas this year and tried to decide what I wanted to buy with it. Shortly after receiving it, my food processor stopped working properly and I ended up dumping it. I used it mostly to puree vegetables and soups. It was a pain in the butt to transfer hot soup from the stove into that processor and back into the pot. It was a mess and I have scalded myself multiple times. I needed a new processor and/or blender for this purpose since I make a lot of soups. I thought, "what about a hand blender?" These things are so cool and you can submerge it in your soup pot and puree it right there on the stove instead of the hassle and mess of transferring it. After much thought, I decided to use my gift card towards a hand blender. I got a Dualite one that supposed to be really good and durable.

I have had it for about a month but haven't had a chance to use it yet until last night. Rick gave me a new cookbook for Christmas called Five Ingredient Fix. The author is celebrity chef Claire Robinson. This book is based off her recipes from her Food Network show Five Ingredient Fix. All of her recipes are five ingredients excluding water, salt, and pepper. I love that because so many cookbooks these days (at least the good ones) have 10+ ingredients for all the recipes. That can get pricey and time consuming. I saw a recipe for Creamy Grilled Corn Soup and I decided to make it last night. It was so tastey and healthy too (I used fat free half and half instead of regular)! Only five ingredients too! After I finished cooking it, I pulled out my hand blender for the first time and...voila! It was sooooo easy and worked great. I LOVE this thing! Rick was amazed as I pureed the soup in seconds. If you make a lot of soups or need to blend things from the stove often, get one! It's awesome!