Back on Track

We had a good week, diet wise.  Both my wife and I lost significant amounts of weight this week, sticking strictly on our Phase II of the South Beach Diet until the weekend.  Monday morning I was still on my "food hangover" from the weekend and had slipped back up to 223.5 pounds.  By Saturday morning, I was hitting my lowest weight since the mid-1990's at 218.4.

We indulged yesterday at my nephew's birthday party (who can say no to Cake and Ice Cream with 3 year olds?), but overall behaved very well.

This weekend, we're sampling the bounty from our garden.  Last night's dinner was a ginger-garlic pork stir-fry with fresh summer squash and zucchini from our garden.  The squash and zucchini made an appearance this morning in a "Garden omlette" (one egg each for each of us, along with a quarter cup of the garden veggies and a single strip of turkey bacon cooked and crumbled into the veggies).

Ahh, but lunch. . . for lunch I got creative (actually it was all Karen's idea) and made a summer squash soup.  Here's the recipie as done, and what I plan to do next time.

First version - the reality:

Two cups diced summer squash, plus a quarter cup of thinly sliced rounds of zucchini.
     (The squash needs to be rough diced so all the pieces are close in size, so they all cook the same)
Olive oil
2 cups chicken stock (vegatable stock would work better, but I didn't have any)
Kosher salt
Black Pepper
1/4 teaspoon basil (a purist would call for fresh leaves, I have dried)
1 tablespoon sour cream

Gently sweat the summer squash with a pinch of kosher salt in a half tablespoon of olive oil until soft (3-4 minutes)

Add the chicken stock, bring to a boil and then cut the heat to low.  Simmer gently uncovered for 10 minutes.

While the soup is simmering, saute the rounds of zucchini until soft and slightly carmelized.  (If you don't want to brown them, sweat them at a lower heat instead)

Reserve six of the zuchhini rounds for garnish and add the rest to the soup.

Move the soup to a blender (or use an immersion blender) and puree until smooth.   Add salt and pepper to taste.

Ladle the soup into bowls, garnish with three rounds of zucchini and a half tablespoon of sour cream per bowl.  Sprinkle half of the basil over each bowl as an addional garnish.

Second version -- what I'll do next time.

The flavor was good, but the soup was too thin, and there were bits of zucchini peel floating in it, which were quite a distraction.  So, for next time:

3 cups of diced summer squash, plus six thin rounds of zuchini for garnish and a half cup of peeled and diced zucchini.
Olive Oil
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
Kosher salt
Black Pepper
1/4 teaspoon basil
1 tablespoon sour cream
1/4 cup whole or 2% milk

Prepare as before, sweating the diced peeled zuchini with the summer squash.
The soup should be fairly thick, and pale yellow.

Next time I plan to prepare it the day before and serve cold, adding the milk as needed to thin it right before serving.