I love zucchini! My grandmother and I once made a zucchini chocolate cake, which was delicious and my grandfather didn't know the mystery ingredient until after he told us how much he loved it! For the wintertime, zucchini soup can't be beat on a cold day. It's fast and easy and if you want to make it vegan, just omit the cream and make it with veggie broth!
Ingredients-
4 zucchinis trimmed and sliced thin
2 shallots chopped
1 medium onion chopped
3 cloves of garlic minced
1/4 teaspoon thyme
6-7 fresh sage leaves
1/2 teaspoon fresh rosemary
Salt & Pepper to taste
3-4 cups of broth-either vegetable or chicken
1/3 cup heavy cream
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
Milk to thin the soup if desired
In a dutch oven, heat up the olive oil and get the onions and shallots sweating! In a food processor, slice up the zucchinis extra thin ( if you don't have one, you can slice by hand, just prep before you start the onions. After about 5-7 minutes of letting the onions sweat, add in the zucchinis and let them saute for another 5-7 minutes.
In the meantime, mince the garlic and get your herbs together. You can add the sage leaves in whole because they will be blended or you can coarsely chop them before adding to the soup.
Once the zucchini is nice and soft put in the garlic and herbs, plus some salt and pepper. Let it saute again for another two minutes.
Add in the broth and simmer for 20 minutes.
After the zucchini has been simmering in the broth, remove from the heart and blend in batches. You can use a food processor or blender, but make sure it is nice and pureed before putting back in to the pot.
Add the cream and a little milk if you want to thin out the soup some more. *To make this vegan, just omit the cream and use vegetable broth and you are good to go*
Allow another 10 minutes of simmering and then you can serve the soup nice and hot with a some homemade croutons. It's great to throw in the thermos for lunch at school or on the go!
Homemade Croutons:
Ingredients:
Some old baguettes
Olive Oil
1/3 Parmesan cheese
Red Chili Flakes
Cracked pepper
Get your oven going at 375 and begin to cut up the old bread into cubes. You can toss the bread cubes onto the cookie sheet and heat them up for about 5-7 minutes.
In a bowl toss in the cheese, pepper and chili flakes, mixing them up . You can omit the pepper and chili flakes but I like a little spice on my croutons.
When the bread has been toasted, throw in another bowl with some olive oil to coat. Don't overdue the olive oil, you just want to get the croutons a quick coat.
Then transfer the bread to the bowl with the cheese mixture and toss together.
Return the bread cubes to the cookie sheet, laying down some foil to keep the clean up easy and pop back into the oven for another 5-7 minutes.
You can serve them fresh with the soup and they will last for the week!
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