brocolli cheddar soup

cheddar has always been my favorite cheese. so, when i was visiting my sister and her husband in san francisco, and we stopped at costco, and they sent me to make a cheese decision, i chose the 3 yr old cheddar. which was a really really good choice. and ever since then, i've been buying cheddar, in small quantities, pretty much every time i go to the grocery store.

i probably didn't need to buy cheddar for this soup today, since i have some in my fridge already. in fact, i had 2 kinds of cheddar in my fridge - a boring kind i bought at the good-produce-no-fancy-cheese grocery store, and then some fancier stuff i bought at trader joe's. but today i also bought an $8 small brick of 2 yr old cheddar - not as good as the costco one, and not as cheap.

my philosophy on cheese in soup is that you need the one with the best flavor - when cheese is an ingredient in a larger dish, you want to have the most flavorful so that you can use less of it. and heidi only uses 2/3 cup, so i wanted to make sure it was really, really delicious.