Cold Soup for Hot Weather

This week I went to an indoor produce market for most of my vegetables on Monday night called Pipkins. I had been up to Findlay Market on Saturday but it was too hot to do all my shopping. The meal we made last night was enough to tell me that Pipkins has some excellent vegetables.

We started the meal with Chilled Tomato Soup with Shallots, Cucumbers, and Corn from Berley's Fresh Food Fast (page 100). I actually used all the ingredients as listed since there was no oil and grains to try and weed out. In the herb options we went with all basil. I didn't peel the cucumber since we were using a thin skinned style.

As far as the procedure went we found that the tomatoes were too much to do in the food processor in one round. This we discovered after trying one round and getting tomato liquid all over the counter. We also found that a mesh strainer just held everything. We quickly reached for the food mill with good results. (The next time I did just try the food mill and found that you still needed some puree action prior. I was making a half recipe the second time so it fit in the blender then back through the food mill to remove the seeds.)

The results are a very tasty gazpacho like soup. The base showed off some excellent in season tomatoes and each bite was a pleasing mix of corn and basil. You really shouldn't make this soup any other time of year. I would say taste is a five and ease is a three.

We finished out the meal with some straight ahead bok choy. Started with Bishop's recipe for Braised Bok Choy with Plenty of Garlic from Vegetables Every Day (page 35). I only had 1.5 pounds from two small head so reduced the recipe accordingly. Also left out the oil and used water in place of the broth. We were quite happy to eat the bok choy but I won't be serving this simple preparation to guests. This particular batch of bok choy was low on greens. I will say taste two and prep three.

It took an hour and 25 minutes from start to table. This included some time in the middle to look up a bok choy recipe, clean up the kitchen, and enjoy some beer. We ate all the soup and all of the bok choy.