cream of zucchini and fennel soup

Made without dairy or oil. Serving up fancy and practical in this protein-rich soup!

I’m all about seasonal ingredients — this summer I have wholeheartedly embraced the zucchini — but I go rogue when it comes to seasonal meals.

I like thick soups in the summer and crunchy salads in the winter. You could say my taste buds are out of tune with weather patterns. Most of the time they’re probably confused about their exact location — last week Taiwan, today California, Newfoundland after that!

This soup, featuring the summery zucchini, is one of those paradoxes; it’s a cozy, soothing yet fresh soup. I added a handful of spiralized zucchini as a whimsical garnish — it adds texture and serves as a visual cue for what’s inside the bowl. It’s an easy and elevated plant-based soup!

Fancy and healthy veg, PLEASE!?

On that note, have you ever noticed how most modern vegetable recipes, the ones you find when flipping through food magazines, have some kind of frying, cream, or cheese component?

This piece — the oil/cream/cheese — is usually the heavy lifter of the dish. Take it away and it’s just meh!

This goes for a majority of veg-forward restaurant menus and James Beard-winning cookbooks— the highlighted vegetable, zucchini, for instance, is deep or pan-fried or there’s a heavy slather of dairy on top, underneath, or stuffed inside.

And I’m sure those recipes are mind-blowingly delicious. Gorgeous too!

But me and you and anyone trying to avoid those things for health, moral, or environmental reasons (or all three, woohoo!), we’re left hangin’.

Can we adapt or modify these recipes and is there even a point?

Yes, we can, and yes, there is!