Here in the Northeast, we are entrenched in a bitter cold snap that doesn’t seem to want to end. During spells like this, there’s nothing quite like a bowl of steaming soup to make winter seem a bit more bearable.

Last night I tried a new trick for making cream-like soups with less fat. I had decided to make Wild Rice and Leek Soup, published in the Cooking Light Complete Cookbook. This recipe requires only a few ingredients and seemed simple to prepare.

To give the soup a creamy texture, the recipe instructs you to purée a portion of the mixture toward the end of the cooking time. You then stir that back into the rest of the soup, and I added a splash of fat-free half-and-half. (The recipe called for heavy cream, but I preferred a fat-free option.)

The soup was a hit and easy to make, and I learned a new trick for making “cream”-based soups while reducing the fat.