COOL HAND CUKE: CUCUMBER-YOGURT SOUP WITH MINT, & GRAPES, WITH A VEGAN VARIATION.

THE ONLY SUMMER SOUP RECIPE YOU WILL EVER NEED.

SO SAVE YOUR GORGEOUS SUMMER-RIPE TOMATOES FOR SOMETHING ELSE.

BECAUSE, FRANKLY, THIS LEAVES TRADITIONAL GAZPACHO IN THE SHADE.

It got up to to 96 degrees yesterday. In Vermont! And it wasn’t even quite July yet!

This struck me as cruel and unusual punishment, because part of the reason I adore Vermont is that this is uncharacteristically hot.

But I was not without resources. I had this soup, already waiting in the fridge, a gentle rebuke to the heat.

Nor was it the first time I’d made it this year. I ‘d spent the first two weeks of June back in Arkansas, my other home, where heat, even in late spring, is typical.

At any rate —  it’s time to share it again with new readers.

I tend to work pedal-to-the-metal when solo. I eat more simply, too: when my boyfriend, sometimes known as Alpha Dude, is not here visiting, I’m the one cooking, shopping and doing the dishes and, plus catching up on all the work I don’t do when he’s here, plus there’s regular work (I’m a self-employed writer! I choose which 60 hours of the week I want to work!.)  (Not complaining. I love what I do; the line between work and play is blessedly sketchy.)

But. Soloing doesn’t mean I don’t eat well.

For years, one hot weather staple almost always in my fridge is a large container of Cucumber-Yogurt-Green-Grape-Mint Soup. I am sure I sip or spoon a bathtub’s worth each summer. I often bring it to potlucks or serve it to friends at summer dinners. It is almost always extremely well-received (except for the very occasional person who dislikes the acidic tang of non-sweet yogurt, or who can’t wrap his or her mind around cold soup).

To me and most people, though, it is just the ultimate in refreshing, summerfood supreme.

Yet this delicious summer stalwart is also as healthy, and easy-to-make as it is  at-the-ready-and-willing in the fridge.

LITERARY ADVENTURES IN CUCUMBER-YOGURT SOUP LAND

This year, I brought a batch of it to the first staged reading of my new and first-ever play, UNTIL JUST MOISTENED: A Not-Quite One-Woman Show, with Crumbs.

UNTIL had been, to my delight, selected as part of the Arkansas New Play Festival. Because said first reading was going to be at 2:00 pm and I just knew that none of us would get lunch, and it seemed to me insane to jump in without some nourishment, and feeding others is what I do — well, I brought a large container of soup, along with a whole-grain rice salad and some latte’d almond-milk, cardamom iced tea, to the venue. (Pictured left, just before that show — my long-time pal and collaborator on the play, Bill Haymes, and our director, Shana Gold, of TheatreSquared).

Soon Ruby, the costume designer, and Jenn, who read the stage directions, were asking for the recipe. Earlier, however, Bob Ford, TheatreSquared’s Artistic Director, had fallen enthusiastically in love with it. Bob was, thank goodness, serving as mentoring dramaturge to me for a week before the Festival proper started. He came over several blazingly hot afternoons to read with me and to let me do that extremely vulnerable first reading and work out my angst. Of course I offered him something by way of refreshment.

“I have iced tea,” I told him. “Or iced herb tea. Or, I have some cucumber yogurt soup that you can kind of half-sip, half-spoon…”

We use the phrase “his eyes lit up” to encapsulate someone’s eyes widening quickly with enthusiasm, agreement or recognition. Bob’s eyes really did light up in this way at the mention of the soup. I ladled the soup into a blue-and-white mug, gave him a spoon, and we sat, going over the lines, he asking questions of me, me asking questions right back, me receiving his gentle, cogent guidance, as he spooned and sipped.

After awhile I noticed his mug was empty.

“Would you like some more?” I asked him.

“Actually — well, yes, please, ” he said, “If you sure you’ve got enough and — ”

If I had enough? As I mentioned, I make this stuff almost by the vat, and I besides, I am of the school that believes that if you don’t have leftovers, you didn’t make enough. I always have enough (and count myself lucky that I do).

Every time thereafter Bob and I worked, I made sure there was Cucumber-Yogurt Soup.

HOW EASY IS IT? PLUS, FURTHER LITERARY CUCUMBER-YOGURT SOUP ADVENTURES

The following tale will illustrate just how fast and easy it is to make.  (It will also illustrate just how prolific cucumber plants are, and, perhaps, how much less than sane and rational I may be).

One year, maybe 2010-ish, I was hosting the annual summer potluck picnic of a loose association of New England-based children’s book writers and illustrators; then about 60 or 70 of us. I had spent so much time getting the house and lawn ready for all of us, I actually, for once, did not give much thought to what I was going serve (because, after all, everyone else would be bringing food).

By 11:00 the house was in order. Everyone was due at noon, and suddenly —  yikes! Everyone else might be bringing dishes, but how could I, both a food person and the host, not provide something as well, besides the house? It just seemed ungenerous and inhospitable.

Well, back then, I had a big, vigorous vegetable garden. I’d only planted maybe a third of packet of cuke seeds, but that was way more than enough. I ran out, picked perhaps a quarter of a bushel of cukes, clipped a big honkin’ pile of mint, grabbed everything else I needed from the fridge, and proceeded to give my Cuisinart one hell of a work-out, tossing batch after batch of puree into my biggest bowl, along with ice cubes which I figured (correctly) would melt down, both diluting and chilling the soup. There was too much of it to have fit in my fridge anyway; that bowl, left over from my days as a restaurateur, has a capacity of almost three gallons.

No more than 30 minutes later, by noon, I had enough made for 60 people to have a cup. There it was on the table, cool and green, drops of condensation on the side of the giant bowl-turned-tureen,telegraphing chill, to my colleagues and pals started to arrive.

By two, hours before everyone started to disperse, there was not a drop left.

LUNAR GAZPACHO

Although I gave a recipe for it in Passionate Vegetarian, where it’s poetically titled “Lunar Gazpacho”, the truth is that while I follow the basic outlines of that recipe, I never follow the measurements. Thus it never comes out exactly the same way twice.

Sometimes it’s thicker, sometimes thinner, sometimes smooth, sometimes chunky. It’s always a little sweet from the grapes and it’s usually zinged with mint (though sometimes I use other herbs additionally). It always has a little richness, both from the yogurt or kefir (omit them for a vegan variation, which if possible is even more refreshing) and a small handful of nuts. Photograph to left: grapes, cuke, and mint in a blender, ready to roll. 

Whichever way I go,  it’s always good.

When on my own and under a deadline, I have even been known on occasion to eat for three meals a day, with just a slice of buttered wholegrain toast on the side… Not that I tell anybody.

But usually I have it with almost anything: a main-dish salad of some sort, a sandwich, a portion of leftover casserole eaten cold… As noted, it is a natural companion to anything vaguely Middle Eastern, those nice amenable loosely Mediterranean dishes that can be served hot or cold but are best at room temp; marinated this and that… But the soup also goes superbly well with a dinner off the grill.

But then, I think it’s kind of happy with almost anything.

CHILLED CUCUMBER-YOGURT SOUP WITH GREEN GRAPES & FRESH MINT

Okay, loves, here’s the soup. This is given loosey-goosey, imprecisely: I make it differently each and every time, and so should you.

Combine in your food processor or blender:

• chunked cucumber *
• green grapes, washed, picked over, and removed from the stem

Pulse, to make a chunky puree. Add the following ingredients:

•  a handful of almonds or walnuts (raw, unsalted)
• a few coarsely chopped green onions;
• a couple cloves fresh garlic (or, in season, garlic scapes)
• a whole lot of fresh mint, stripped from the stem (or fresh dill, or a combination of the two, along with a little cilantro if you like)
• a little optional agave to bring up the sweetness of the grapes
• salt to taste

Turn this puree into a large mixing or serving bowl, or a big refrigerator storage container with a lid.

Now, stir in enough liquid to make it the consistency of a not-too-thick, textured smoothie. Note on photograph to the left: because the ingredients and proportions vary slightly each time you make it, the exact shade of green varies, too. Sometimes it’s quite bright, sometimes more muted. 

About half the liquid should be:

• unsweetened plain yogurt, buttermilk, Greek yogurt, or kefir

The other half should be

*       water (I used to use vegetable stock but these days am using water.)

Whisk well, and taste. Refrigerate.

Eat/ drink / sip  your way down. If you want to fancy it up, scatter some minced herbs over the to, some sliced cukes in half-rounds. Bliss on a hot afternoon.

* The quality of the cukes  is one element that can make or break this. You want unwaxed; preferably Persian or Euro, but any variety will do as long as you’ve tasted it and ascertained that it is sweet, fresh, and crisp-crunchy, not bitter, and either seedless or young enough that the seeds are barely formed and tender. Generally, I leave part of the cuke unchunked, and dice it carefully, stirring it in at the end for texture.

VEGAN CHILLED CUCUMBER-SOUP WITH GREEN GRAPES, AVOCADO & FRESH MINT

To veganize this, you could use unsweetened, unflavored non-dairy yogurt, such as that made from coconut milk, but I think that substitution doesn’t really work with the flavors. Instead, when make it vegan, I simply omit that component, using all water for the liquid.

However, to give the creamy mouthfeel, I add a ripe avocado or two, blended up with the cukes and grapes. And to add the tang of the original, I squeeze in the juice of 1/2 to 1 1/2 fresh limes or lemons.  These changes make a surprisingly large difference in the two finished soups, but dang — both versions are just so good.