well, here we are in late july and all we have to show for it is approximately 6000 rewatches of good omens and a garden full of big fat meanie zucchini that threaten to take over the whole entire earth probably. or maybe that’s just me.

let’s take it back for a sec to april 2019. i know, crazy. if you’re like me and are currently watching tennant-era doctor who for Very Important Reasons, all we can do is hope we got the date right and we haven’t accidentally landed like a hundred years earlier in werewolf-infested scotland where we meet the queen and try/fail(?) to prevent the werewolf gene from being passed down through the royal family over and over again into oblivion.

anyway, it’s april 13 2019. blah blah blah magic pasta. something about fullmetal alchemist. there, right there. pause a moment on the part about beethoven and samin nosrat. take a screenshot of it for no other reason than to forget about it and let it collect dust on your phone until the end of time. it goes something like this:

beethoven apparently said that, “only the pure in heart can make a good soup”, and while i prefer that statement over vitaly paley’s “find the best ingredients possible and listen to what they tell you about how they want to be prepared. mess with them as little as you can blah blah blah”, i also deeply love samin nosrat’s response to beethoven, several hundred years later, “get into the habit of making soup with the fewest possible ingredients, and you’ll find it’s so delicious it might even purify your heart.”

so, let’s get into it. it’s mid summer and the heat is eating away at you. you haven’t done all the things you said you were going to do. you’ve barely done any of them. all you have to show for it is approximately 6000 rewatches of good omens and a garden full of big fat meanie zucchini that threaten to take over the whole entire earth probably.

stop with the sitting-there-drowning-in-the-sweat-on-your-skin and the praying-for-a-storm-to-come-and-make-everything-new-again. get up and pick an armful of zucchini from your garden or from a roadside stand. hold the whole world in your hands for a minute. cook those zucchini long and lazily with not much more than an onion and a little salt. take a deep breath and serve it chilled with something pickled and heart shaped. and let it, whether you’re an angel or a demon or something in between or something more or something less, purify your heart just a little.

-kara

chilled zucchini soup with pickled strawberries
serves 3-4 with extra strawberries

ingredients

for the soup (adapted from salt, fat, acid, heat):

  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 and 1/4 pounds. zucchini, roughly diced
  • 1 medium onion, roughly diced
  • salt to taste
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • a handful of chopped, toasted walnuts
  • 1 mint sprig per bowl

for the pickled strawberries (adapted from bon appetit)

  • 1 pound ripe strawberries, halved
  • 1 and 1/2 cups balsamic vinegar
  • 1/4 cups sugar
  • 1 and 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt

instructions

to make the soup:

heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. add the zucchini and onion and cook, stirring often, until JUST tender. you don’t want it to brown at all and it will continue to cook down once you add the water. add just enough water to cover everything and a pinch of salt, and increase the heat to high. bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low. cover and let simmer for 1 hour. remove from heat and let it cool completely, then blend until smooth using an immersion blender or by pouring into a blender in batches. taste and add more salt if needed. refrigerate until chilled.

to make the pickled strawberries:

place the strawberries in a 1-quart jar or other large container. bring the vinegar, sugar, salt, and 2/3 cup water to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally. pour the hot mixture over the strawberries and let cool. cover and chill.

to serve:

top each serving of chilled soup with a spoonful of strawberry pickles, some of the walnut pieces, a generous grinding of black pepper, and a sprig of mint. serve it to somebody you love, yourself included.