Lettuce pea soup

The pictures of the soup do not bring out its beautiful green color, and I am sure that a few more peas would have not hurt either.  Yet, I had been pining for pea soup and had bags of lettuce sitting in the fridge and no desire to eat salad or much of anything, for that matter while the temperature had been in the upper 90’s.  With inspiration from a recipe I had seen on my search for a chilled pea soup, this little number came into being.  It was a perfect number now that the temperature has finally dropped to a more seasonable 80 degrees here in Southern Oregon, following the veritable heat wave.  It had been so hot, that the mere thought of even turning on the stove top was just unbearable so there would be no fresh made chicken stock for this soup base and we do not usually have boxed stock in the pantry hence, the use of the bullion cubes instead. The meal was also inspired by all of the beautiful summer small plates being served here in Ashland at some of our favorite establishments.

Ingredients: 

1 tablespoon butter or butter substitute of your choice

1 cup onion diced

1 /2 lb salad mix or torn head lettuce

1 lb sugar peas shelled or whole with strings removed

1.5 squares of low sodium vegetable bullion

um vegetable bullion

4 cups water, boiling

Warm the onion with butter until the onions take on a golden hue in a sauce pan approximately 7 minutes.  Melt in the bullion cubes as the onions are cooking.  Add 4 cups of boiling water to the sauce pan.  Add the peas and simmer for 1 minute.  Turn off the heat and add the lettuce to the pan, stir gently until the lettuce is wilted.   Carefully transfer a portion of the mixture to a blender and blitz to incorporate.  Continue in this fashion until all of the soup has been blitzed and transferred to a storage container.  At this point you can either enjoy the soup now.  This soup is also good chilled or at room temperature.  To help chill the soup faster, I transferred portions to their serving bowls which were then placed in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Fresh pea soup with lettuce after it has been chilled in the refrigerator.

This soup paired beautifully with tomatoes filled with baba ganush and cucumber-turnip salad.

In Health,

Dr Amanda Hochman

Naturopathic Physician at All Paths Naturopathy & Midwifery LLC