Damn I make good soup

My answer to an over-abundance of vegetables that I don’t know what to do with is to make soup. I haven’t always made soups – I found them a little daunting, but once I tried it, I found they’re really simple, packed full of flavour and a great solution to a problem that is not such a bad problem to have.
My soups have ranged from my Super C Three pepper soup to Rustic Potato and Leek Soup, the less successful If it’s Green, I’m Keen Soup, and today’s Damn I Make Good Soup Zucchini Soup!
I opened my organic food box from Abel and Cole today to find that I had about 8 more zucchini’s to add to the 10 I already had in the refrigerator. Yikes! What to do? What else, but make soup! It’s a sunny summer day, and typically these days don’t make me crave soup, but I had to do something with all of those vegetables!
I started with a whole yellow onion (always a yellow onion for cooking – they have the best flavour and add a little sweetness to the dish). I chopped the onion, and put it in the pot with a little bit of olive oil. I sweated them until just soft, and added four cloves of garlic. While that was cooking, I chopped a mountain of zucchini into small cubes, and added them to the pot. I sautéed them until just soft and a little browned in places, and added my stock. Now the stock is what put the damn in this soup!
I had just ordered a ridiculous amount of dried chiles and spices from the Cool Chile Company, a London based answer to all of my hopes and dreams! With my little mortar and pestle, I crushed a vegetable stock cube, achiote seeds, sea salt, chile powder, ground cumin, Mexican oregano, red pepper flakes, a dash of paprika, and a pinch of sugar. From this, I made my stock. I added it to the vegetables, and brought it all to a boil. After it had cooked for about 15 minutes, I added the juice of a whole lemon to add some acid, and to bring out the fresh summer flavour of the zucchini. I cooked that down until the liquid had reduced to half, and blended with a hand blender. The result was a creamy (without the cream) fresh and tasty summer zucchini soup that made me say damn I make good soup!