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Spring green soup uses a mix of vegetables

Recipe: Served hot or cold, it's a taste of the season

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Kathy Morrison PUBLISHED APR 14, 2019

Celebrate the green of spring with this vegetable soup. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)

A soup as green as the region’s rain-nourished hills is this week’s recipe celebrating seasonal produce.

I found the recipe in Anna Thomas’ wonderful “Love Soup” cookbook, which is entirely vegetarian. In a nod to the festival going on this weekend in Stockton, this soup includes asparagus, but also leeks, baby spinach and fresh mint. No cream, no butter.

The original recipe also calls for baby zucchini, but that’s a summer vegetable, and I grow (and cook) so much of it during the summer I refuse to buy it out of season. I substituted frozen baby peas because I didn’t have time to hunt down fresh peas, but those certainly are an option. I still had some green garlic, so that went into the soup, too. Thomas encourages variations.

The soup came out a little thinner than I expected, so I advise adding the vegetable broth just 1 cup at a time, rather than all at once, and checking the thickness with each addition.

Green vegetables for a fresh-tasting soup.

A note on vegetable broth: Ideally, use your own homemade broth. (I covered how to make that here.) But that’s not always possible, so commercial broth will work, too. But note that the available brands vary widely in ingredients and (especially) sodium content. Read the labels: Broth without tomatoes or tomato paste will work better in this recipe.

Top the soup with a drizzle of olive oil and some croutons or wonton strips — or crème fraîche, if dairy is OK with you. It will make a lovely first course for any spring brunch or dinner; it also can be served chilled, as an appetizer.

Spring green soup

Adapted from “Love Soup” by Anna Thomas

Serves 6

Ingredients:

1 large leek, trimmed to white and light green parts and thinly sliced, plus one of the following additions: 1 stalk green garlic, 2-3 scallions or a second leek, also sliced

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 ½ teaspoons sea salt, plus more to taste

1 large or 2 small Yukon Gold potatoes, about 8 ounces total

½ pound asparagus, about 8 stalks

8 ounces fresh or frozen baby peas (2 cups) or 2 small zucchini

7 to 8 cups baby spinach leaves (equal to one 5-ounce bag)

1 tablespoon chopped fresh spearmint leaves or chopped fresh chives

Up to 3 cups vegetable broth (see note above)

2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Cayenne pepper

For garnish:

Fruity green olive oil

Optional garnishes:

Crunchy toppings such as croutons or wonton strips

Freshly ground black pepper

Crème fraîche or crumbled goat cheese

Instructions:

Measure the sliced leek(s) and green garlic or scallions: You should have 2-1/2 cups total. In a large nonstick skillet, heat the olive oil and cook the sliced vegetables with 1/2 teaspoon of salt over medium heat until they are soft and tender, 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Set aside.

While those veggies are cooking, scrub and dice the potato, then put the pieces in a soup pot with 4 cups cold water and 1 teaspoon of salt. Simmer the potato pieces, covered, for about 10 minutes.

Stir the vegetables into the potato mixture.

Trim just the ends (including any white part) off the asparagus and then slice the stalks into 1/2-inch pieces. Rinse the peas (they don't have to be defrosted) or trim and slice the zucchini.

Roughly chop the spinach. Add the asparagus, peas or zucchini, spinach and the leek mixture to the pot with the potatoes.

Simmer the soup for about 15 minutes. Add the mint or chives during the last few minutes of cooking.

Remove the soup from the heat and add 1 cup of the vegetable broth. Allow the soup to cool briefly, then puree it using an immersion blender or in batches in a regular blender.

Put all the soup back in the pot and stir in 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice and a pinch of cayenne pepper. If necessary, add more vegetable broth until the soup seems the right thickness. Taste the soup and correct the seasonings, using more lemon juice, salt or cayenne as desired.

Serve the soup warm, with a drizzle of fruity olive oil and any of the other garnishes as desired, or chill for 1 to 4 hours and serve with just a grind of black pepper and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

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RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

spring vegetables recipes gardening Sacramento recipe soup seasonal cooking asparagus

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Flowers in My Back Yard Series

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June 16: Daylilies are perfect for water-wise gardens (and a lot more)

June 9: Grow coneflowers for pollinators -- and yourself

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May 29: Are your roses going 'blind'?

May 26: Zinnias are the summer flowers every garden needs

May 19: Plant dahlias now for late-summer flower power

May 12: Know your coreopsis from your bidens

May 5: Mums the word on Mother's Day weekend

April 28: Majestic Matilija poppy is worth a look

April 21: Celebrate roses, America's favorite flower

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April 3: Make Easter lilies last for years to come

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Garden checklist for week of Aug. 16

During this break in the heat, feed your garden. Make sure to water before and after applying fertilizer.

* In the garden, direct seed beets, carrots, leaf lettuce and turnips.

* Plant potatoes.

* Harvest tomatoes, beans, squash, pepper and eggplants to prompt plants to keep producing. Give your plants a deep watering twice a week, more if planted in containers. Also, give them a boost with phosphate-rich fertilizer to help fruiting.

* Watch out for caterpillars and hornworms in the vegetable garden. They can strip a plant bare in one day. Pick them off plants by hand in early morning or late afternoon.

* Feed citrus trees their last round of fertilizer for the year. This will give a boost to the fruit that’s still small.

* Mulch can be your garden’s best friend – it conserves moisture while blocking out weeds. But don't let mulch mound around stalks, stems or trunks. That can promote rot.

* Camellia leaves looking a little yellow? Give them some chelated iron. That goes for azaleas and gardenias, too.

* Pick up after your fruit trees. Clean up debris and dropped fruit; this cuts down on insects and prevents the spread of brown rot. Then feed fruit trees with slow-release fertilizer for better production for next year.

* To prolong bloom into fall, feed begonias, fuchsias and container plants. Always water before fertilizing.

* Fertilize fall-blooming perennials, too. Chrysanthemums can be fed until the buds start to open.

* Prepare for a fall full of flowers by paying a little extra attention to your garden. Cut off spent blooms from roses, annuals and perennials, then give them a boost of fertilizer. Make sure to water plants before feeding. Roses will rebloom about six to eight weeks after deadheading.

* Indoors, start seedlings for fall vegetable planting, including bunching onion, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radicchio and lettuce.

* Sow seeds of perennials in pots for fall planting including yarrow, coneflower and salvia.

Send us a gardening question, a post suggestion or information about an upcoming event. sacdigsgardening@gmail.com

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