Corn and Vegetable Soup

I'm not normally a summer soup person.🍲  Give me a bowl of warm chowder or a hearty stew on a chilly Fall day and I'm happy girl but for me, summer is all about grilled fish and fresh salads.🙃🥗  Soups and sweaters are a natural match.  Soups and swimsuits - not so much.👙 😅  And yes, I've tried chilled soups like gazpacho -- they're just not my thing.🤷🏻‍♀️ 

I grew up in Ohio where the corn is so sweet and tender that it needs no butter or salt.  It's one of the great pleasures of summer.  Safe to say I'm a fan of all corny food - chips, tortillas, flakes, pop.😂🍿  So naturally, fresh corn recipes catch my attention like this recipe for vegetable soup in my Cook's Illustrated magazine.  It sounded so good, I decided it was worth breaking my no soup in summer rule.🌽😂  

I wasn't so sure how my husband would react to eating soup in the middle of a heat wave but we actually both enjoyed this soup so much that it was worth the beads of sweat that dripped down our foreheads while we ate.😅  Maybe I'm a summer soup person after all.  The fresh vegetables really shine through in this fresh, bright soup. 

Just for kicks I did the nutritional calculations for this recipe.  A 2 cup serving of this soup is only 189 calories.   I paired my soup with a handful of crackers and it was a filling, low-calorie summer meal.    

Corn and Vegetable Soup
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
4 cups chicken broth
10 ounce can Ro-Tel Diced Tomatoes and Green Chilies
3 ears corn, kernels cut from cob
1 zucchini, cut into 1/2" pieces
4 ounces green beans, cut into 1" pieces
1/2 cup fresh basil. chopped

Heat oil in dutch oven.  Add onion, carrots, 1 t. salt and pepper.  Cook 5-8 minutes until browned.  

Stir in broth, cobs and undrained tomatoes.  Reduce heat to low and simmer 30 minutes. 

Remove cobs.  Stir in corn kernels, zucchini and green beans. 

Cook 5-8 minutes.  Scrape corn cobs with the back of a knife.  Stir corn pulp into soup with basil.  

Remove 1 c. soup and transfer to a blender.  

Process until smooth.

Stir puree back into soup and season with salt and pepper if necessary.  

Ciao!

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