Roasted Summer Squash and Chicken Soup

Hello Blog Readers!

I’ve not posted recently, but I’ve been busy and happy over the July 4th period of time.

Recently, I made this roasted summer squash soup. I had bought a package of organic yellow summer squash and green zucchini at the local grocery store. And I hadn’t done anything with it, and it needed to be used. So, I roasted all of it in the oven–cut in rounds, sprinkled with herbs, salt, and good olive oil. I had some for one meal with a grilled steak.

But…

What to do next? There was a lot of it to eat in a few days.

I put all of it in a pot, covered it with water, brought it all to a hot stage, and “boat-motored” it.

Here’s my “boat-motor,” which I truly love. I like that it plugs in so there are no battery issues.

I sautéed the usual suspects (carrots, onion, garlic, celery, half of a red pepper I had on hand), and added the chicken. Of course I used duck fat as my sauté fat.

Isn’t this half of a red pepper pretty? When I cook, as you know from reading my blog, I like to use what I have on hand. I think of these things as “assets.”

I also had some fresh corn I had taken off the cob. When they have multiple fresh corn for sale, like 6 for X dollars, I buy the 6, cook them all, and remove the kernels from the extra cobs.

I also had some collards that needed to be used. I had wanted to blanch them, stem them, and have them as wraps for a chicken salad I had made, but that didn’t happen.

I washed and stemmed the leaves and rolled the leaves together and cut them.

Then I cut those rolls in the other direction and put them into the pot on the stove.

I like this brand of chicken. I was able to get it in Maine too. I was only able to get these boned and skinned breasts on July 4th weekend, so I made do with it. I had wanted thighs which have more flavor. To me, today’s chicken breasts taste like sawdust. They are tasteless.

Here’s everything together now–and I had some frozen/defrosted broth from cooking the chicken for the chicken salad I recently made. So I added that to the pot. I had cooked that broth down a bit for storage so it was strong.

Americans no longer eat nose to tail any more. Instead we buy muscle meats. And we are missing all the glycine we would get from animal ligaments that are not present in lean muscle meat. When I make a soup, I add one scoop of gelatin powder to it. First you put the soup in a short glass (or something like that), add some liquid (I used milk this time). In a bit the gelatin reconstitutes, so I add some of the hot broth to it–BEFORE ADDING IT TO THE SOUP.

The last thing I added was the squash puree.

And here you have it–a gorgeous soup that is FILLED with awesome tastes. There were so many flavors to enjoy–to which the fresh herbs added on top added. I buy dill, but I have basil, Italian parsley, thyme, mint, and oregano planted here. (I didn’t add the garden sage, lavender, rosemary, or chives for this soup.) Go slow with fresh oregano as it is a very strong herb.

And about that practice of having fresh corn on hand. Here’s a salad I made using some of the leftover grilled steak and corn prior to making the soup.

All of this food was so yummy. I don’t mind spending some time cooking as I have food for future meals, which gives me more time to do other things AND the enjoyment of beautiful, tasty food.