Vegetables are very healthy for you, no matter how you choose to eat! Asparagus soup was once a luxury item, but in modern times, anybody can enjoy its rich flavors and great nutrition.

Even better, because you can make this with canned asparagus, you can whip it up any time of the year, without having to do any extra shopping. As long as you keep your kitchen stocked with some basic herbs and spices, you will be all set for this perfect meal or side dish.

Ingredients:

1 can asparagus
1 pint cream
2 Tbsp butter
1/4 tsp parsley
1/8 tsp onion flakes
pinch nutmeg
pinch salt
pinch pepper
Champagne, if desired

Start by blending the asparagus, cream and butter. If you like your soup to have a few chunks in it, keep out a few of the tips of asparagus to add in after the blending part. Note that I don't specify cream type here. You can have a thin soup with regular cream, or a thick soup with a heavier cream. In our case we wanted a really thick soup so we went for 1/4 pint half and half, and 1/4 pint heavy cream. It's completely up to you.

Then add in the various spices, mixing them in well. We happened to have an open bottle of Champagne, so we added that in for extra flavor. I found that Champagne went really well with the finished soup :)

Put this into a soup pot. Bring it to a boil, then simmer it for a while, about 10 minutes. Longer is better for bringing out rich flavors, but even after ten minutes the soup is quite delicious.

Sprinkle a little parsley on top for decoration, and you're all set!

This is great as a lunch meal, on its own - and is also perfect as a starter for an evening meal. For us, we served it before we had a main dish of tuna steak. The soup was so delicious that I didn't finish my tuna steak, but did want to go back for seconds on the soup. Even better, if you have leftovers of the soup, it's easy enough to microwave the next day and enjoy then.