VeganMoFo 2014 Day 4 - Summer Corn Soup

Another new-to-us recipe. This one comes from the May 2009 McDougall newsletter, and Mary says it's a variation of the Corn Chowder, another McDougall Favorite that made its way into the McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart book.

Summer Corn Soup
Preparation Time:  15 minutes
Cooking Time:  15 minutes
Servings:  6

4 cups fresh corn kernels (see hint below)
2 cups rice, soy or almond milk
2 cups vegetable broth
1 onion, chopped
1 green, yellow or orange bell pepper, chopped
1 small zucchini, chopped
2 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
Several twists freshly ground white pepper
¼ cup slivered fresh basil leaves
Dash sea salt, optional

Place 2 cups of the corn in a blender jar with the non-dairy milk of your choice and process until smooth.  Set aside.

Place about ¼ cup of the broth in a large soup pot.  Add the onion, bell pepper, and zucchini.  Cook, stirring frequently until vegetable are fairly tender, about 5 minutes.  Add the remaining broth, the remaining 2 cups of corn kernels and the tomatoes.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.  Add the blended corn/milk to the pot along with the pepper.  Heat through, but do not boil.  Stir in the fresh basil and sea salt.  Serve at once.

Hint:  Frozen, thawed corn kernels may be substituted for the fresh corn, if desired, although the fresh corn gives the soup a more vibrant flavor.

I took the hint and used frozen corn, a bag and a half (1 1/2 pounds) made up 4 cups of kernels. The corn was on sale and 2 bags of frozen corn came out to cost less than 2 ears of fresh corn. Why are fresh produce prices so high? This wasn't even organic corn, either. That just doesn't exist in my city!

I used almond milk, boxed salt- and oil-free broth, and fresh tomatoes. Next time I'm going to just use 2 cans of no-salt added petite diced.

Fresh basil instead of dried. Oh, it smells heavenly! It's been over 2 hours since I diced those leaves up and my fingers still smell of it. 

The photo shows the soup in the pot heating up. Just before I served it I took the immersion blender to it and chopped up the large pieces of tomato and zucchini, but not blended so fine that the soup is creamy and smooth. It's still a bit chunky. Next time I'll either cut the veggies much finer and leave it as-is, or blend it longer to make it creamier. The chunkiness was a weird texture.

But the soup tasted great, regardless of texture. This one will probably make its way into steady rotation. My husband loved it and sopped up the dregs in the pot with his bread. He said he didn't want to waste one drop of it. We each had a fairly large bowl, and he had a smaller bowl as a second helping, emptying the pot. There are no leftovers.