This soup is simply amazing. It requires a bit more time to prepare than the usual mydinnertoday kind of soup and you need to have zucchini and peppers in hand but it’s worth it! I’m posting this recipe again as a reminder and also to show the variation you can get in the color. This time round I used fresh tomatoes, no sauce or tomato paste, which gave it a more yellowy and less reddish color than before. The taste… unbeatable! Serve with toasted bread or crostini (bread pressed on oily surface and baked to crispy in the oven).
Recipe
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 large yellow onion, diced (or a cup of frozen, diced onion)
- 4 red bell peppers and 2 yellow red peppers cored, seeded, and thinly sliced (or 2 cups of frozen sliced peppers)
- 8 plum tomatoes, quartered (or a best quality, big can of plum tomatoes)
- 4 zucchini, halved on the long side and sliced
- 4 garlic cloves, minced (or 2 cubes frozen garlic pulp)
- 1 russet potato, peeled and diced
- salt and freshly ground pepper
- 2 cubes of frozen basil (or 1 cup of basil leaves processed with 1 cup of vegetable oil)
- 3-4 cups chicken stock
How to make: Heat the olive oil in a heavy skillet and cook the onion with the peppers. Put the onions and peppers aside. In the same skillet, add 2 drops of olive oil and cook the tomatoes for about 10-12 minutes. Added salt, pepper, 2 frozen cubes of garlic pulp and 2 frozen cubes of basil pulp. When the tomato sauce is ready, put it aside. Add couple more drops of olive oil and sautee the zucchini for about 10 minutes. In the meantime, put the chicken stock in a pot and turn on the heat. When the zucchini is ready, everything goes into the pot with the chicken stock (sauteed onions & peppers, tomato sauce, and zucchini). Add the potato cubes and cook at low heat for 20 minutes. Puree the soup with a hand blender.
Update 2014-02-26
Today our helper made the soup using the one and only zucchini we had in the fridge. It came out just great in taste but too thick. That’s probably because that one zucchini did not release enough water. Not a big problem. Extra broth or water fixes the consistency. So, when you make this soup bear in mind that what your soup should be fairly thick and rich but if should not look like potato puree. If you can eat it with a fork you know it’s too thick. Add more liquid!
Mydinnertoday 