Inappropriate Summer Meals

I love hot things. Why? I am routinely cold, and I am not talking a touch on the chilly side, I am talking my fingers or your bare skin results in frost bite. I’m talking there are throw blankets in every room of my house and in every car that I own. People: I have a space heater under my desk which has been turned on... in July! With record highs in North Carolina! Obviously I have to deal because I married a person who if I could harness their body heat into electricity I could power my house for free. It’s not natural how hot-natured he is and how cold-natured I am. It defies all logic. 

One of the ways I deal is I drink coffee like it is going out of style and eat soup for lunch on a daily basis. And yes I realize this is a totally normal thing-if you live in Sweden whose average temperature in July is 70. Pheft! 70? We’re lucky if it stays 70 degrees for 5 days in the spring. Which P.S.-- I would like to say I am officially mourning the loss of the season formally known as Spring in North Carolina. This year it went from 30 to 100 in a week.  Thou dost displease me weather! Make a note of it.

While I love a calm chowder, I wanted to make my own summery hot soup. So I did.

So it’s summer- this means summer squash and the last of those pesky acorn squashes from my produce box.
Preheat your oven to 400. Grab your food processor, one sauce pot and a saucepan and as P. Diddy says: LET’S GOOOOO!

Cut your acorn squash into 3-4 pieces and roast for 15 minutes. While this is roasting you can go ahead and cook the other vegetables.

Cut up 2 summer squash and add to a hot saucepan with EVOO. Cook on medium heat until soft. About mid way through add chopped onion and minced garlic. (I cheated and used already cut frozen onions) Once soft, add in shredded carrot and cook until all the vegetables are soft.

In your pan, cook down 2-3 chopped large field tomatoes on medium heat. I didn’t bother to remove the seeds, because usually this removed the goo that holds the seeds. I like to get all the moisture from the tomatoes that I can. Next: to this pan I add the scooped out flesh of the acorn tomatoes. I let these fuse together.

We’re ready for the food processor! Assemble and add the tomato and acorn squash mixture first. Turn on and mix until smooth. I then add the summer squash and carrot mixture along with 7-9 springs of FRESH basil. (You could also use cilantro if you were feeling funky) This will start to incorporate nicely.

This goes back into the pot where you can now decide how thick you want this to be. Dilute to your preference with stock (I wound up using about ½ cup of vegetable stock because I wanted this to be hearty soup.  Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.

Once finished, I knew I was missing something…you guessed it! TRADER JOES ROASTED CORN! Hate on it all you want- it definitely gave the finished product some needed texture and man do I love it’s flavor!

And there you have it! A soup that normal people could enjoy in the summer! And it was yummy!