Super warming broccoli cream soup

Perfect for a cold winter's day!

Ingredients:

• A full kilo of broccoli (seriously, like three of those frozen boxes)
• Let's say a half-dozen medium-sized-to-small mehlige Kartoffeln ("floury" potatoes? You know, the kind that cook soft, which you would use for making mash)
• Chunk of butter for sauteeing
• One whole big white onion
• Three toes (hee hee) of garlic
• Ground black pepper
• A ton of hot chilis. In whatever form: chili powder, chili flakes, fresh chilis, dried chilies. I used like nine dried bird's eye chilis and they were absolutely divine: definitely very spicy and warming, but not painful
• 1.5 liters of water
• A few spoonfuls of salt
• Some kind of blender, like a stand blender or handheld immersion blender
• 100g cheese (cheddar or gouda would be perfect)
• 100g crème fraîche 

Make the soup:

1. Prep the broccoli: If using fresh, wash this and cut it into pieces, peeling the tough parts off the stems (such as the bottoms and maybe even a couple centimeters up the stalk with a carrot peeler). Then cut off the florets really high up, so that you have a pile of stalks and a pile of nothing but florets. Chop the florets really fine.
2. Prep the taters, garlic, and onion: Peel these and cut into hunks. Don't worry about being too fine about it, we're just pureeing it all in a bit.
3. Sautee the onions and garlic in a pan with the hunk of butter. 
4. Once soft, add the potatoes, broccoli stalks, pepper, and chilis, and stir around for a minute or so.
5. Pour the water over everything, add the salt, and bring it all to a boil. Then immediately reduce the heat and simmer until the potato chunks fall apart when you prod them with a fork, about 15 minutes.
6. Add half of the finely chopped broccoli florets and simmer for another 5 minutes or so.
7. Remove the soup from the heat and carefully (it's hot!) blend it so that it is fine and creamy. Take your time and be thorough about it.
8. Carefully transfer it back to the heat to simmer. Add the cheese, crème fraîche, and remaining broccoli florets. Taste to see if it needs more salt, and if it's spicy enough, mmm.

Serve with another dab of crème fraîche in each bowl and a sprinkle of parsley over the top, if you'd like. Crusty bread and a cold white wine are great with this. I'd suggest a fruity wine to counteract the chilis' heat – something more like a Sauv Blanc than a Riesling.