Resilience and cheese soup

I adore cheese!  I love it, prefer it to all other snacks, and even to sweet things.  I will take a nice hard Spanish cheese or a creamy French cheese over any type of chocolate any day of the week. 

For someone who loves cheese so much, I actually dislike cheese soups greatly.  They seem too much like a sauce that should be poured over Irish meats, or something to dip chips into. 

The Handsome Ginger requested Broccoli Cheese soup.  He rarely requests things, so when he does, I try to deliver.  We put it on the weekly menu.  We picked out our accompanying bread.  We purchased our high quality sharp cheddar.  I found this delicious recipe and a  Food Lab explanation about the science behind cheese soups. 

And then I broke it. 

Something happened during the cooking.  I suspect that in my attempt to multitask, I allowed the milk to boil, separating the milk solids and screwing up the emulsion.  I also didn't have russet potatoes and subbed in some baby red and yukon golds.  Whatever happened, I broke it.  It was a thick grainy yucky mess.  The Handsome Ginger took one bite and decided to make a sandwich instead.  Oh the rejection! 

But...maybe something could be done.  I woke up this morning determined to salvage something from my ruined soup.  I tried to fix the emulsion, making a roux and slowly whisking in the broken soup.  It sort of worked.  A little grainy, but much better than before.  And as I stirred and whisked, I realized that I was trying to turn a broken soup back into a soup.  Sometimes, when something breaks, it needs to turn into something new. 

I boiled a pot of noodles and folded them into my broken soup.  Voila! Macaroni and Cheese!  Definitely something that feels better than gross cheese soup.  The Handsome Ginger is skeptical, but ate a whole bowl. 

While making others happy with my food will in turn make me happy, making myself happy with my food also does the job.  I am proud of my gross soup turned mac and cheese.  I am proud of myself for not throwing it away, and instead working to make something new out of something broken.