I had planned on making a few more dishes yesterday but various things popped up and I only got round to making a Summer Green Cream soup, using spinach, zucchini and lettuce with buttermilk to make a bright and tasty chilled soup. Serena helped make the soup and drank a teaspoon of buttermilk. She was very disappointed that it tasted like yoghurt and not, as she hoped, like a mixture of butter and milk.
Buttermilk, incidentally, is more easily digested than regular milk, and is a good option if you are watching your calories and/or fat. A cup is only 100 calories, and it has something like a quarter the fat of regular milk.
The soup is basically a blender soup: you steam the spinach for a few minutes, then do the same with the zucchini. The recipe calls for fresh basil, though if you don't have it you can use dried but add it in when you are steaming the zucchini or spinach so the basil has some opportunity to flavour the vegetable. Puree the two and transfer to a large bowl.
Next, puree a medium lettuce with enough buttermilk to do the job. Combine with your spinach/zucchini blend, and add more buttermilk - up to a quart. Add a dash of nutmeg and enough black pepper to taste. I used about a teaspoon of tamari or soy sauce to season instead of salt. You are going to refrigerate this, so if anything I would suggest slightly under-seasoning as it will intensify slightly when left to rest. You can always add ...
When finished, you need some kind of garnish on it just to give it a nice textural crunch - I used green onion and parsley. I briefly considered a whisper of grated parmesan, or a drizzle of cream, but it really doesn't need it. Even my old standby of a squeeze of lemon is unnecessary.
Buttermilk, incidentally, is more easily digested than regular milk, and is a good option if you are watching your calories and/or fat. A cup is only 100 calories, and it has something like a quarter the fat of regular milk.
The soup is basically a blender soup: you steam the spinach for a few minutes, then do the same with the zucchini. The recipe calls for fresh basil, though if you don't have it you can use dried but add it in when you are steaming the zucchini or spinach so the basil has some opportunity to flavour the vegetable. Puree the two and transfer to a large bowl.
Next, puree a medium lettuce with enough buttermilk to do the job. Combine with your spinach/zucchini blend, and add more buttermilk - up to a quart. Add a dash of nutmeg and enough black pepper to taste. I used about a teaspoon of tamari or soy sauce to season instead of salt. You are going to refrigerate this, so if anything I would suggest slightly under-seasoning as it will intensify slightly when left to rest. You can always add ...
When finished, you need some kind of garnish on it just to give it a nice textural crunch - I used green onion and parsley. I briefly considered a whisper of grated parmesan, or a drizzle of cream, but it really doesn't need it. Even my old standby of a squeeze of lemon is unnecessary.
When I woke up around 6:30 I remembered I had not made any lunch for the girls. They would have the soup, of course, but that would be nowhere near enough. I poked around in the fridge to see what I could throw together.
In the drawer were half a dozen breakfast sausages that we hadn't eaten for a few days, and that gave me an idea. I disemboweled the sausages, fried them in a little olive oil for a while, then added some finely chopped leaks, half a shallot I had left over, a clove of minced garlic, black pepper and red pepper flakes. At the same time, I then cooked the rest of a pack of penne I had around and tossed it in with the meat. Finished it off with cream and grated parmesan.
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