GreenLiteBites

If you didn’t know, I was recently crowned Zucchini Queen. ;)

Mom went away for a few weeks only to return to monstrous sized zucchini in her garden. I volunteered to take a few off her hands (along with some tomatoes and anything else she was willing to part with.) I have been falling short in the home garden department this year.

Anyway, I love zucchini! You may be able to tell by the plethora of ideas I share using it. Here are a few of my favorites…

• Stuffed Zucchini Pizza Style
• Quinoa Stuffed Zucchini
• Zucchini Pancakes
• Giant Stuffed Zucchini
• Zucchini Pizza Bites
• Zucchini and Spaghetti Squash "Lasagna"
• Baked Zucchini Fries

See.. told you. LOVE zucchini. :) Click here for all idea using zucchini.

I also hope to spread that love to my children..

Yes, that’s Little Bean utterly fascinated. He’s starting to use those hands more and more and I plan on getting veggies in them as soon as possible. :)

Anyway, the first thing I wanted to try with the zucchini was soup. I never had a zucchini based soup before but it makes sense. Zucchini is mostly water and it takes on flavors really easily, so why not?

Well I’m glad I tried! My experiment came out delicious! Here’s what I did.

• 1 tbsp olive oil (14g)
• 1 sweet onion chopped
• 500 g of a large zucchini cut in chunks with skin (and seeds) – It was about 2/3 of one of those zucchini’s pictured.
• 2 tbsp bacon bits (14g)
• 2 cups of your favorite broth (I used some home stock I had in the freezer)
• 2 tbsp parmesan cheese (10g)
• 5 sprigs of thyme
• Kosher Salt
• 3 cups of Baby Spinach (85g)

Heat the oil in a medium to large saucepan and sauté the onion over medium-high heat until just browning. Add the zucchini and bacon bits and continue it sauté.

Once some of the zucchini starts to brown, add the broth and bring to a boil. Cook until the zucchini softens. It will depend on how large your chunks are. Mine only took about 5 minutes.

Once soft, use an immersion blender or transport the zucchini and broth to a blender. Blend until smooth then add in the cheese, thyme, a few pinches of salt and the spinach. Blend again.

Serve with an additional sprinkle of parmesan cheese on top and a few more thyme leaves.

I tried it hot, cold and at room temperature. By far I liked it warm the best but I’ve never been a cold soup person.

The recipe yielded 5 cups but I got 3 servings out of it. I’ll give the the Nutritional Info by cup and let you decide how you want to separate it.