Good Earth Gardens and Zucchini Soup

Last year, a bunch of my coworkers were offered the opportunity to take part in a kind of mini farmer's market through a company called Good Earth Gardens. The company is run by a Master Gardener (Leslie), and every week, she brought in deliveries of all kinds of vegetables for a monthly fee. You could sign up for different packages (for a single person, couple, or family) and she would bring in all kinds of variety for everyone to enjoy. Well, immediately after this started I got veggie envy, but I never participated since I would have never been able to go through all of the veggies and was afraid it would be a waste of money.

Well this year, when the opportunity came up again, I immediately jumped on it! One of my teammates and I split a "single" delivery every week, and it is still way more than enough veggies to the point where Allen and I can't finish them all! (My Mom and Dad have lucked out with the extras though) It has seriously been such a cool thing to have this summer at work, and we always look forward to our Wednesday veggie deliveries.

The other nice thing is that it has forced us to eat a ton of different kinds of veggies that we would have never bought for ourselves normally. It has also been pretty educational since there are a lot of veggies I've never even heard of that we end up receiving (i.e. kohlrabi - what the heck?!)

Kohlrabi (kind of tastes like cabbage - not my fav, but interesting!)

So this has been a whole new fun thing for us, and we are completely spoiled now by all of the fresh onion, peppers, tomatoes, broccoli (ohhh the broccoli), sugar peas, green beans, fresh herbs, a few different kinds of squash, carrots, swiss chard, spinach, cucumbers, eggplant...the list goes on and on. Plus, it's really nice to support the local produce, a local company, and Leslie is as nice as can be. So now we've gotten in the habit of incorporating all of these veggies into more and more meals, and it has also allowed us the opportunity to get a little bit more creative with our dinners. Which brings me to my next creation: Zucchini soup. Don't be discouraged if you don't like zucchini, (it has been taste tested and approved by Allen and a few of my coworkers) and this is one that I made up on my own (yay!) so please enjoy:

(I didn't take a photo of our soup so I borrowed one from Simply Recipes - it should look similar when you're done!)

Zucchini Soup

Ingredients:

Olive oil - about 2 tbsp

2 small yellow onion, chopped

3 gloves garlic (of course), minced

3-4 lbs zucchini (this is an estimate - the zucchini we got from Leslie was HUGE and would be at least 4 lbs, which was plenty), skin taken off and chopped into bite size pieces (if the skin is hard to take off, you can bake it for 10-15 minutes and it will loosen it up - little trick from my friend Jill :))

4 cups chicken stock (can also use vegetable)

Red pepper

Lemon pepper

1/2 cup heavy cream (optional - I added it, but it could be creamy enough without it)

Salt and pepper

Instructions:

Heat the olive oil in a large pot on medium-high heat. Once heated, add the chopped onion and minced garlic for about 3-4 minutes until translucent and fragrant. Add a dash of the red pepper (more if you like the spice) and a tablespoon of lemon pepper, stir until fragrant - about a minute. Reduce to medium heat and add all of the zucchini. Cook until soft, about 5 minutes or so. Add the stock, bring everything to a boil, and then bring the heat down to medium and let everything cook for about 20 minutes.

Remove from the heat and use a hand immersion blender (or food processor) to blend everything until the soup is smooth. Return the soup back to the heat and add the cream if necessary (it helps to smooth it out, but the squash makes the soup pretty creamy anyway). Add salt and pepper to taste, as well as any additional red or lemon pepper if you want to kick it up a notch ;) We topped the soup with some crispy fried onion salad toppers and some yummy crusty bread. Enjoy!!

Butternut Squash Soup

So cooking has quickly jumped to the top of my list of hobbies in the past year or so, and I've really been enjoying trying out new recipes. One of my favorite things to make is soup - I love soup. I could eat soup every day. We already have a few really yummy soup recipes in the rotation (french onion, broccoli, beer and cheddar), but last night we made butternut squash soup. I have to say, it is now officially in the rotation - I love it! Here is the link to the recipe (also below with my modifications): Giada's Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients

Soup
2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, peeled and chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 1/2 pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 3/4-inch pieces (about 7 to 8 cups)
6 cups low-sodium chicken stock
1/4 cup chopped fresh sage leaves
Kosher salt freshly ground black pepper

Crostini:
1/2 baguette, sliced diagonally into 1/2-inch thick slices
Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage leaves (I did not put sage on there, but it's an option from the original recipe)
1 cup (2 ounces) grated fontina cheese
Kosher salt (and I also added pepper)

Directions
In an 8-quart stockpot, add the butter and oil and melt together over medium-high heat. Add the onion and carrot and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Add the squash and the chicken stock. Bring the mixture to a boil and add the sage. Continue to boil until the vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes. Turn off the heat. Using an immersion blender, blend the mixture until smooth and thick. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Keep the soup warm over low heat.

For the crostini: Put an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Arrange the bread slices on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sage. Sprinkle the cheese on top and season with salt, to taste. Bake until the cheese has melted and the bread is light golden, about 6 to 8 minutes.

To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with the cheese crostini.

Giada's Note: The cooked vegetable mixture can also be pureed (after cooling for about 5 minutes) by ladling, in batches, into a food processor or blender and blended until smooth.

Enjoy!!