The Suburban Girl Gone Country: Zucchini Soup

Summer squash is here! I set my seeds out on the central coast April 15^th and started harvesting June 15^th. I have 30 zucchini plants and I am picking about a pound a day which is about 3 zucchinis for me. Wow, I didn't think they would grow so fast and produce so much! What a great crop for me, a beginning gardener, and gophers seem to leave them alone. We have a huge gopher problem here. So far they have taken two pumpkin plants and a jalapeño plant. They must have been hungry to have taken a jalapeño plant! J What I've been doing to stop them from returning is putting sturdy rose bush clippings in the holes. Supposedly, their wounds don't heal very well. I guess you can visualize the picture. I know this sounds a bit cruel, but hey, I could be like my neighbor and shove water down the hole and wait until the gopher pops up from another hole and shovel it. Yikes! I hope I don’t have to result to that. Not saying I have anything against it, because, hey, plants have lives too! I truly morn for my plants when I see them wilt or die after those darn gophers eat the roots. But, I do have to say, they stay clear away from my garden beds once I fill their holes with rose bush clippings. And about a month later I see holes again; I fill the holes again with clipping. I think it’s the next litter that is out to get my garden. You may be thinking why didn't you just cage in your planting area? Or, use planter boxes! I tried to do the caging in thing and in the middle of digging huge trenches and trying to lay down chicken wire that would not stay in place; I gave up and just throw the dirt back down and planted some seeds. Planter boxes can be costly and that was out of the question since we are renting. But, I have these tree boxes that I purchase for 25 bucks each that I cut in half and put chicken wire on the bottom of. For a total of about 12 dollars I have a 4 square foot and 2 feet deep cedar mobile planter box. I have 12 of those. That’s where I have my lettuce and tomatoes. Lettuce and leafy greens I would say never plant in the ground without protection. Every animal will eat those tasty veggies.

Zucchini is one of my favorite veggies. You can put them in stir-fry’s and casseroles and even make noodles out of them. One thing you can’t or I should say I can’t do, is eat them raw. They don’t have a great after taste to me when eaten raw. If you have a recipe for raw zucchini that you think I would like, or any other recipe for zucchini, please leave me a comment with your recipe. I would love to hear what you like to do with zucchini!

It’s been about 75-85 degrees her, and it gets in the low 50’s at night. Eating nice potassium rich zucchini soup sitting on the porch in the evening is ideal for me. This is my favorite thing to eat when I am starting to get headaches from the dry heat. Just one medium 7 ounce zucchini has 700 mg of potassium and only 3 grams of sugar. That is insane! C2O coconut water has that much potassium in the entire can with 26 grams of sugar. So yes, you can find electrolytes in veggies too, if not more. In comparisons of 100 grams of C2O coconut water vs. zucchini, zucchini has more magnesium, 6 times more vitamin C and, pretty much more of every vitamin and mineral found in coconut water.

Let’s eat Soup! I like mine slightly warm with parmesan or goat cheese sprinkled on top and sometimes a little fresh cilantro or parsley. Yum. Simple and easy. Just the way I like my food!

Ingredients:

4 cups of chicken stock (salted with sea salt)

1.5 pounds of zucchini or about 8 cups sliced

1 medium onion chopped

3 tbsp of olive oil

2 tbsp of butter

Directions

Sauté the onions with the olive oil until they are caramelized. Add the chicken stock and zucchini. Cover and let simmer for 20 minutes or until the zucchini is tender. Turn off the burner and let sit until it reaches room temperature. Puree 2/3 of zucchini and broth in the blender with 2 tbsp of butter. Add back to the pot with the rest of the zucchini. Stir, heat and serve.