Yellow Zucchini Soup

As promised!

I do have some bad news though...I don't have any pictures of this one so you'll have to use your imagination.  The soup being as fabulous as it was, was a TOTAL accident.

 

I was at my local farmer's market carrying around a HUGE (it was honestly like, a foot and a half long!) Yellow Zucchini.  (It only cost me 50 cents and I didn't even use the whole thing!)  A man spotted me carrying it and said, "That'll make an excellent soup." Challenge: accepted.

 

So I got to work.  Here's what you need:

 

-One yellow zucchini

-4 big potatoes

-1 yellow onion

-2 T basil

-1 T Italian seasoning

-1/4 c. marscarpone cheese (sour cream, if your grocery store STILL isn't carrying this great stuff!)

-3 c. chicken broth

-2 c. water

-salt & pepper

-Asiago cheese wedge

 

Roux:

-3 T flour

-3 T butter

-roughly 1/2 - 3/4 c. milk

 

And here's what you'll do:

In a BIG pot, start heating up all of the chicken broth and water.

 

Give your zucchini a rough dice.  Cut it into a-little-bit-bigger-than-bite-sized pieces.  I used about 2/3 of my zucchini.  You can use the whole thing if you'd like!

Also, peel and quarter your onions and potatoes.

All the veggies into the pot.

 

Next, chop the basil and add it and the Italian seasoning in.  A good tablespoon of salt and half tablespoon of pepper should be added for flavor.

 

Now, cover your pot and let it sit on a low heat for 3 hours.

 

After 3 hours, you'll add in your marscarpone.  At this point, I also blended my soup.  I have one of these fancy guys:

This is called an Immersion Hand Blender.  I call it a juuusher because that's what it seems to do. :-)

Blend your soup so that there are no big chunks.

 

Next step is the roux.

 

In a medium saucepan, add your butter and flour.  Stir/mix continuously until it looks paste-like.  Now, slowly pour in milk.  Like I said in the ingredients, it will probably be 1/2 cup to 1 cup.  The consistency you are looking for is that of a cream sauce: thick but smooth.

Add the roux to the soup and give it a good stir.

 

Let the soup sit for another 2 hours (this can go longer or shorter...but my mom has ALWAYS told me that the longer a soup sits, the better it is).

 

Next is the best part.  Cube up the asiago and dump in as much or as little as you want.  It slowly melts in the soup and causes some great chewy, cheesey bites (my sister and I like to call these 'cheese surprises' :-) )

 

That's it!  The soup should be extremely velvety and delish.

This soup made so much, I sent some over to my parents/sister and Dan's parents and we still had lots left over!!

 

You gotta try this one... it is such a delicious yet light comfort food!