Two Summer Soup Recipes to Impress Your Guests

Here are two soups, one thick and chunky to serve hot (it goes great with any kind of chicken dish) and one elegantly cold and minty, which makes a great prelude to a seafood luncheon. They are both meatless, which makes them good offerings when the dietary requirements of guests are uncertain. They both do have dairy products in the ingredients, however.

Both of these soups are best made ahead and chilled. This makes them great to serve to company, since there is less to do when the company actually arrives and are still completely and impressively homemade.

So much of cooking is an evolutionary art. These are recipes I have made many times before, yet, as I made them one last time before typing them up for this article, I found myself tasting and adjusting (slightly) the recipes... yet again.

Hearty, Creamy, Chunky Fresh Corn Soup

Time:

Getting everything together, 5 minutes. Bringing the milk to a boil, slowly, 10 minutes. Chopping and then Sautéing the vegetables, 15 minutes. Reheating the mixture, 20 minutes. Pureeing ½ the mixture, 10 minutes. Preparing the garnish, 5 minutes.

This is a soup best prepared a day ahead, so the flavors can do their thing together.

Ingredients:

6 ears corn on the cob
1 quart milk, whole is best, 2 % will do, but lower fat will not cook correctly
½ stick of butter or a good margarine (the olive oil margarine works great)
2 medium sweet white onions, chopped
1 clove of garlic, pressed, or 1 tspn of garlic powder
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 stalks of celery, chopped
2 bay leaves
½ tspn rosemary
½ tspn thyme
½ tspn sage
2 bay leaves.
Salt
Pepper

Method

1.Cut the corn off the cobs, holding the cobs back. Cut or break them into two or three pieces each. Put the milk with the corn cobs into a large pot with the rosemary, thryme, sage and bay leaves. Slowly heat, stirring occasionally, especially checking the bottom for any sticking, until it just begins to boil. Immediately move the whole pot off the heat and set aside.

2.Melt the butter or margarine into a large skillet. Stir the onion into the melted butter, salt lightly, and sauté slowly, until limp and sort of transparent. Keep the heat low enough that it doesn't brown. Add the garlic and the celery and carrots, and heat through. Add the corn that was cut from the cobs and sauté on low until the vegetables are soft, about 10 minutes.

3.Take the bayleaves and the corncobs out of the seasoned milk with a slotted spoon or sieve. Add the vegetables from the skillet to the seasoned milk, and then add two cups of water. Bring this mixture slowly back to a boil, then immediately reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 10 minutes, to give the flavors a chance to mingle.

4.Pour half the mixture into another large container. Blend this half in a blender until is a nice puree. In my blender this process takes three times pouring some of the mixture into the blender, pureeing that, pouring it into the soup pot, and refilling the blender. Return the puree back to the original mixture.

All this is best done a day ahead of time. The soup can spend the night in the fridge, and the flavors will blend into something special. When you're ready to serve it, reheat and garnish with:

Chopped green onion
Crumbled bacon
A pinch of Paprika and/or a pinch of cayenne.

Cold Cucumber Mint Soup

Time:

About 15 minutes, start to finish. However, this is one of those soups best made the night before, or at least two or three hours ahead, so it can sit in the fridge and the flavors can meld.

Ingredients:

4 medium to large cucumbers, peeled, seeded and cut into chunks.
1 small clove of garlic, pressed, or (not as great) ½ tspn garlic powder
1 Cup of Plain Yoghurt, not low-fat, but it's already better for you then sour cream....
3 scallions chopped a little.
2 Tbsn fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup fresh mint. This is one of those times that dried just won't do, it must be fresh.
Kosher salt
Black pepper. A grinder is certainly worth investing in.

Method:

1. Put about half of one of the cucumber's chunks aside for later (about 1/8 of the total cucumber). You'll need to set aside some of the mint for garnish, too. Put the rest of the cucumber along with the yoghurt, lemon juice and ¼ cup of water in a blender and purée until smooth.

2. Now add the garlic, the scallions and the mint leaves to the blender and purée again until smooth. Add salt and pepper and blend that in quickly too.

3. Chill until ready to serve. I go ahead and put it in the bowls before chilling, and I put some cucumber and mint on top for garnish, and chill the whole thing. That way the people get their cold soup in chilled bowls, which seems more elegant. The soup is kind of a light green with dark specks, so is very pretty.