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Yellow Summer Garden Vegetable Soup

August 7th, 2012

I’ll be honest. Most of this stuff didn’t come out of my garden per se, but they came out of someone’s garden. Right?

And the truth is, I wanted all of this stuff to grow for me, but the corn and huge bell peppers have been out of my reach with the cold gray summer we are having in Seattle.

Wait, do you want to just reach through the screen and throttle me right now because you are somewhere sweating like a pig (that’s how I sweat) wishing it would rain or something? Don’t worry, you are not alone (in the sweating, not the throttling). Seattle got a tiny taste of that this weekend. But collectively the Summer has been pretty dreary and un-Summer like. I keep complaining that I don’t really even have zucchini or tomatoes growing right now- I mean are you kidding!!?? It’s August! However- my lettuce and beets and nasturtiums are Out-Of-Control with all of this cool, moist weather.

Ok, I will stop rambling about the freaking weather.

Let’s talk soup. And really beautiful yellow vegetables. I am a color freak, and I couldn’t really help myself with this yellow soup. I saw all of the veggies in the drawer of my fridge, and as I went to add my golden beets (actually from my garden!) I couldn’t not notice all of the bright yellow veggies begging to be paired together. Into a pot they all went, and after a brief trip to the blender, viola! Beautiful soup.

This is brilliant hot, but you know what? It’s really quite lovely chilled too. Because I am a glutton I added soft goat cheese to the top and swirled it into the soup. Frankly, I would have liked to add some crumbled bacon too, but I would mostly like to add that to anything.

Great first course or as a light Summer dinner with a green salad. Enjoy!

This is how I made it:

Melt the butter in a large heavy pot over medium heat, and add the onions and sweat over medium heat until the onions start to become translucent, about 5 minutes. Do not let the onions brown.

Add the rest of the vegetables, and stir to coat the vegetables with the butter.

Add the water to the pot and cover with a lid.

Simmer on lowest heat for 45 minutes or until the beets are soft.

Puree in batches on high so that the soup gets smooth.

Add the soup back to the pot and reheat over low heat.

Generously season with salt to taste. Garnish with some goat cheese and fresh herbs (I used nasturtium petals).