Ok in the home stretch now!  3 days to go, and then I will be 31.  I really think I’m going to finish all of these things on this list!  This soup has a very nice backstory – it’s one of the things my husband made for me for our first Valentine’s day together.  This started our proud tradition of not going out on Valentines day – it’s just so…hokey.  Instead, we got dressed up and he picked up ingredients for a fancy 3 course meal in – turns out, 2 of the 3 courses were bright green (both of them delicious as well – in case you’re wondering the other one was salmon with scotch bonnet pepper sauce – I’ll have to blog about that one some day too) and we have fond memories of eating this green soup on that chilly winter evening back in 2005.

I personally love bisque, however the pound of butter per bowl is a little much for my stomach usually.  This bisque has – wait for it – absolutely NO butter.  Yep, that’s right, no butter.  The avocado provides all of the creaminess one needs in a bisque, and is much, much healthier than butter.  Some people who have reviewed it complain it is too bland; I will agree, it is a bit on the bland side if you follow the recipe to a tee.  I added much more lemon juice than called for and also some extra salt and pepper.  The other thing I did was to add some extra shrimpiness by boiling the shrimp tails in the chicken broth before I used it.  I also pureed the base after it was made, before I added the shrimp, as I personally think a smooth green soup is more tasty looking than a lumpy green soup.  Enjoy with some crusty french bread on its own, or you can try it as an appetizer as well.

Avocado Shrimp Bisque

From William via allrecipes.com

• 3 ripe avocados
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can chicken broth
• 2 cups skim milk
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 2 teaspoons minced onion
• 1/2 pound cooked shrimp
• salt and pepper to taste

• Slice avocados in half, and discard pits.  Remove avocado flesh and chop coarsely.  Remove shrimp tails and chop shrimp coarsely.  Place chicken broth and shrimp tails into a small sauce pan and simmer on low for about 10 minutes.  Strain shrimp tails out of broth.  Combine avocado meat, broth, milk, lemon juice and onion in a small sauce pan and heat through thoroughly but not quite to a boil.  Remove heated broth to a food processor, and puree.  Place pureed soup back into the sauce pan and add chopped shrimp.  Enjoy!