chilled cucumber & avocado soup

with fresh summer herbs

Is it weird that I get kinda bummed out around the summer solstice?

Don’t get me wrong, I looove that it’s the longest day of the year, but then comes the sadness knowing that from here on out (for the next 6 months at least..), each day will be a little shorter than the last.

Hands down, my favorite time of day to work outside is evenings in the summer after Sawyer has gone to bed, when I can quietly catch up on the day’s tasks while the sun sets and the fireflies come out. Which means I don’t love thinking of the approaching winter evenings when it’s dark by 5pm… though I will say, usually by the time winter rolls around, my body is more than ready for a break, so the short days are a probably blessing, because lord knows that if I could, I’d be outside working till 9pm year round.

In other news, it’s been a wildly wet week around here… I haven’t checked my rain gauge yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we got over 4” of rain in the past few days.

While we definitely needed the rain (it’s been super dry the past several weeks), I’m not sure we needed 4” all at once?! But that’s summer in North Carolina for you.

Thankfully, we had enough breaks in the rain to get a ton of harvesting, trellising, pruning, weeding, and more planting done this week. Now that all the plants have gotten a good, deep drink of water, I expect that everything (weeds included..) will grow wildly fast over these next few weeks.

Our tomatoes are looking awesome and are loaded with fruit (hallelujah!), but they’ve been slow to ripen, and the cool, wet weather this week doesn’t help. Here’s hoping that we get some good sunshine in the days ahead, and soon enough our weekly veggies boxes will be overflowing with tomatoes (and peppers and eggplant and okra and green beans..)!

That’s all the farm updates for right now… I need to get outside to harvest the never-ending cascade of zucchini and cucumbers. Keep reading for this week’s recipe, chilled cucumber & avocado soup with fresh summer herbs!

This week we’re swimming in a ridiculous amount cucumbers, which is a fabulous excuse to make one of my favorite chilled summer soups… chilled cucumber & avocado soup with fresh summer herbs.

For anyone on the fence about chilled soups, hear me out! For one thing, chilled soups usually come together in just a few minutes. For this one, you just throw all the ingredients in a blender and whiz everything up until it’s creamy, then season to your taste. ALSO – chilled soups are a great way to use up summer produce (like my mountain of cucumbers), AND of course they are cool / refreshing on hot, humid summer days. Chilled soups are a great make-ahead dinner party dish, and you can even pop them in cute little shot glasses for a snazzy appetizer.

Most chilled soup recipes (this one included) don’t have a ton of ingredients, so the quality of your ingredients really matters. I love this soup because the cool cucumber / avocado / yogurt combo is balanced out with a pops of brightness thanks to fresh herbs, lemon juice, garlic, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. It’s super adaptable, so after you whiz everything up in your blender, give it a taste and *adjust the seasoning* to suit your palate! If you want more pop of lemon, add more juice! Want extra herbiness? Throw in more parsley, basil, or whatever herbs you have on hand. Need more spice? Add a bit more roasted red pepper flakes (or toss in a roughly chopped jalapeno pepper). As always, you do you.

Happy cookin, good lookin!

Chilled Cucumber & Avocado Soup with Fresh Summer Herbs

Serves 2-4