Zucchini Soup

This soup is so rich and creamy, you'll think it's full of cream.  

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons butter

1 medium onion, white or yellow, thinly sliced

8 to 9 cloves garlic, peeled & finely minced

1 kilo, or 2 pounds of zucchini, diced

4 cups salt-free chicken stock

¼ teaspoon ground turmeric

¼ teaspoon Chinese 5 spice

½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

¾ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons fresh chopped basil

Directions:

Melt the butter in a heavy stock pot. Add the onions and cook on medium-low heat until the onions are translucent.  

Add the minced garlic and stir for 2-3 minutes, being careful to not brown the garlic.

When the onion and garlic are very soft, add the diced zucchini (Tip:  If the zucchini is very mature, peel the skin first so it doesn’t give a bitter taste to the soup) and cook everything medium-low heat until the zucchini is soft.

Remove the soup pot from the heat and add all the remaining ingredients, except the basil.  

Use an immersion blender to blend until everything until is creamy.  If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can use a conventional blender to blend everything in small batches and then return the soup to the stock pot.

Bring the soup back to a boil and then simmer on low heat for about 45 minutes.

Add the chopped basil and serve.

Yield:  About 1½ quarts

Note:  If you want to make this totally vegan, just substitute olive oil and vegetable broth for the butter and chicken stock.