Soup Chick®

Broccoli and apple soup recipe

What I love most about making soup: you start out in one direction, end up somewhere else altogether, and rather than going off the rails and into the compost, your dish most likely will be spectacular. And so it was with this broccoli and apple soup, which is the very first dish on which my new cooking assistant, Kathy, and I collaborated. We started with a recipe in Best of Irish Soups, a small cookbook my friend Lucia brought from her last visit home to Ireland. The original recipe called for cream, but we went a different route, adding lemon zest to brighten the flavor, and a good pinch of black pepper for bite. The apples provided sweetness that married well with the broccoli. This make-ahead-and-freeze soup just might be my contribution to this winter's Soup Swap.

Traditional gazpacho recipe

Over on my other food blog, The Perfect Pantry, a reader named Maria left this comment on a post about sherry vinegar (with a recipe for my somewhat unorthodox gazpacho): "Hi, sorry, but this is not really a gazpacho recipe. I know there are many versions of gazpacho but it is definitely never spicy, people in Spain don't eat much spice, and when they do it is never hot sauce. The traditional gazpacho uses tomatoes on the vine in Spain, but in the US they tend to have more acidity so I usually use plum tomatoes. Green pepper, olive oil, sherry vinegar, salt, leftover bread and a clove or two of garlic. Some people add onion and cucumber but v8? Also it is completely blended so it ends up being as smooth as possible. The recipe you wrote sounds good but I think the traditional one is so simple, it's worth doing." I asked Maria for her recipe, which she gladly shared. Light, refreshing, tangy but not spicy. We loved it! Muchas gracias, Maria.

Seven soups every Saturday: melon soup recipes

The first time I made melon soup, it couldn't have been easier. I cut open a honeydew so overripe that it had nearly soupified all on its own. A few smooshes against the side of the bowl with a wooden spoon, and the flesh of the melon just fell apart. Ice cold, it was the most refreshing soup, and since then I've been experimenting with all sorts of melons, all sorts of mix-ins, and lots of flavor combinations. Happily, I'm not the only one.