Difficulty Level Easy

Another heat wave has hit Toronto and with the temperature hovering around 30C, I ditched the plans I had for a hot soup and started searching for something I could make ahead and serve cold. I had some strawberries left over from my foray into jam making, and they were getting a little mushy. I certainly didn't want to waste my farmers' market berries, so I decided to make strawberry soup. I'm used to cold vegetables soups such as cucumber, avocado, and the classic Vichyssoise but this is an entirely different take on cold soups. Usually fruit based soups are sweet and can be served for dessert. The only sweetness in this soup comes from the berries themselves.

This recipe is from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman and like most of the recipes in the book, he gives you a number of variations for the recipe. Use this recipe as a jumping off point. If you don't have strawberries, use blueberries and replace the balsamic vinegar with orange juice. Use tomatoes and add basil rather than mint. I like the sound of pineapples with curry powder. The point is you can do whatever you want. He calls this a soup, but really it is a fruit base with the yogurt mixture spooned on top, which is how I did it. I guess if you wanted to mix it all together you could do that, but it's quite pretty served this way and every mouthful is slightly different. He calls for straining the yogurt mixture and discarding the mint, but as it was from my garden, I didn't have a cup, and I hated the thought of throwing it out, so I just left it in.

INGREDIENTS