What's for Dinner, Thurs., June 20, 2024

[NJCher]

I've found a new interest during this hot weather: cold, pureed soups. They are so easy to make. It also suits the fact that I had dental work yesterday, and am not supposed to chew anything for a while. Fine with me.

Yesterday I made celeriac soup with a little cauliflower. It also had celery leaves. The best part is that I could use some of the leek broths I've made over the last week. I added coconut milk to round the soup out. It turned out to be a pale green and was absolutely delicious. I added sausage crumbles, per the recipe, and that added a salty note.

I had a big leek crop and while you can chop the white and light green part for freezing, most freezing guidelines don't recommend the greener part of the leek. They say it's ideal to make soup broth with this part of the leek, though, so that's what I did. I have 3 frozen gallon-size bags in the freezer and a few more to make. This is so much fun! I just love this part of gardening--creating healthy food from what I've grown.

Another advantage to leek broth is that you can cut out the chopped onion step. This makes putting together a pureed soup much easier.

Tonight I'm making Hungarian Mushroom Soup (recipe by Mollie Katzen). I've made this many times, and it's a good chilled soup.

BTW, for anyone interested, Mollie's Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook has around 20 recipes for cold/pureed soups. Included in that are cold fruit soups!