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A summer starter and a side: My Chilled Cucumber Soup and Marinated Summer Vegetables adapted from Bon Appetit

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         A bowl of chilled soup can really start a summer meal off right.
Make enough of it, and anytime you want, there’s a bowl of cool comfort waiting in the fridge.   As to today’s side, it’s a terrific way to have vegetables on hand and at the ready.  You do a simple roast of the farm stand’s best, then while warm douse them with a marinade with just enough garlic and fresh oregano to give them some lift.  I wish I could say the Cucumber soup was farm stand material. The recipe calls for something from fairly far away. All the way from a greenhouse in California.

       

Far from the Farm Stand

As far I can see the English Cucumber has about much to do with England as the English Muffin—both triumphs of American marketing! All cucumbers came to us via India but cucumbers have been cultivated virtually everywhere on earth for hundreds of years.  The English Cucumber is an ordinary everyday cousin of the common cuke. That being said, they’re prized for their thin, edible skin and their relative seedless-ness.  And that’s why they’re used here:  Half the cucumber is pureed, the other half goes into the soup in a dice.  Greek yogurt adds to the cool.  Dill greens it further.  And never leave out the croutons. They’re a whole reason to keep days old bread.  They’re a snap to make.  

        

I can’t get enough of summer’s best vegetables.  They’re glorious right now.  So I doubled a recipe I’d seen in Bon Appetit. This is the kind of thing that you can put into mason jars and store in the fridge for weeks.  Pull it out and let the olive oil un-cloud and it’s perfect buffet item.  You can use these marinated vegetables in sandwiches too—think provolone and salami or mozzarella and beef. As to required peeling of the peppers, I will only say, it was surprisingly simple but oh so worthwhile.  Here are the recipes:



2 thoughts on “A summer starter and a side: My Chilled Cucumber Soup and Marinated Summer Vegetables adapted from Bon Appetit”

  • Shame on me! I had not even THOUGHT of Cucumber soup in the longest time! And you are so right, the vegees right now, perfection. Sweetly roasted and paired with a chilled soup…. Ahhhhhhhh

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