Cold Soup (Smoothies for Dinner)

As the weather warms up I am reminded of another reason I like soup--one very different from its comforting place between my hands in the cold--it can be whatever you want pureed and no one can say you're wrong! The soup is what you make it! Make it your dream!

This soup's dream was to be creamy but creamless, smooth and crisp, and, obviously, pink. Fruit gets thrown into the mix of veggies to lighten it up and pretend that vegetables belong in smoothies or fruit in soup. I dunno. All things confused (not to be confused with All Things Considered. I wonder if they've considered fruit soup?).

Ingredients hang out for a bit to develop a rapport with one another. Also known as marinating.

This kind of soup is especially cool because you can add whatever you've got in your fridge, and it takes about 10 minutes of chopping, then blending, before you have the (nearly) finished product. A pretty hands-off way to prepare for the evening meal: Make soup. Put in fridge. Make a cocktail. Forget about soup. Make a second cocktail. Get hungry and a bit tired. Realize there is soup in your fridge! Rejoice. Remove, ladle, and enjoy.


Watermelon Gazpacho

1 cucumber, peeled
5 cups cubed watermelon (roughly)
½-1 jalepeno
2 small zucchini or yellow squash
1 medium onion
juice of 1 lime
juice of 1 lemon
salt
olive oil
3” toasted baguette (or stale!)

To top:
1 avocado, diced
1 tomato, diced
¼ c diced green onion
2 ears corn
½ c chopped cilantro
juice of 1 lime
salt

Puree all ingredients (immersion blender works best!). Allow to chill and let flavors meld for at least 1 hour, or overnight.

Cut kernels off the corncobs. Toss together all topping ingredients, dollop atop bowls of soup.