Summer is, by far, my least favorite season. I am 75% Irish thanks to my Dad having been born there and I certainly look it with my deep red hair and very pale skin. Skin that does not play well with lingering, glaring sunshine. I’ve taken to carrying an umbrella to block the sun and I wear a loose-fitting white shirt everywhere now so I get as little “summer color” as possible. And the heat… oh the heat. Currently I am overweight (and working to correct it) so the heat is even worse, but even when I was a decent weight I was rather heat intolerant. Needless to say, the drought last year was a nightmare! This year is better so far. We’ve had a little rain and currently it’s a pleasant 60 degrees- so nice! But I know it won’t last. It never does around here anymore. Keeping that in mind, I have made the shift from warm, comforting, satisfying, wonderful fall/winter food to cooler, lighter, fills-up-the-tummy-without-weighing-you-down summer foods. This recipe fills that bill and is fun besides! There are a number of meal “positions” it can fill: breakfast, dessert, side dish, or snack. Serve it with homemade egg english muffin sandwiches and it’s breakfast. Serve it with grilled chicken & potatoes and it’s a side dish. Serve it with a dollop of sweetened whipped cream alongside some vanilla wafers or pirouette cookies and it’s dessert. I’ve done all 3 and it fits perfectly with all of them!

Start with fresh strawberries and remove the leaves. You can hull them if you like but I just took off the leaves since they are going to be pureed. Slice them in half and add lime juice and sugar.

Those are beautiful, are they not?! Let these sit in the fridge for 30 minutes to macerate then puree them in a blender or food processor. If you wanted to you could puree half and dice half of them fine to give some texture to the soup but I like mine completely smooth- like so…

Now you have a choice to make: soup now or soup later. Put this puree in a freezer safe container and you can put off making the soup until later (which is what I did by the way- hence the omission of the ingredient photo). That way you can buy strawberries when they are on sale and have this soup in the off season 🙂 Or you can proceed with the recipe and enjoy this wonderfully refreshing soup immediately.

We’ll assume you’re proceeding with the recipe and continue 😉 To this puree add plain yogurt, heavy cream, sour cream, and honey. Whisk together, chill thoroughly, and you’re ready to go.

Super easy, super light, and super tasty! And perfect for this wretched season we call summer with all it’s heat & glaring sunlight 😉

The Recipe:

1 Lb. Strawberries

1/4 C Sugar

2 T Lime Juice

1/2 C Plain Yogurt

1/2 C Heavy Cream

3 T Sour Cream

3 T Honey, to taste

The Method:

*Wash, trim, and slice the strawberries and place in a bowl.

*Sprinkle sugar and lime juice over berries.

*Toss and let macerate for about 30 minutes.

*Put the strawberries in the blender and process until pureed.

*Add the rest of the ingredients and process until smooth.

*Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours until chilled.

*OR if using thawed puree mixture: transfer thawed mixture from freezer safe container to an adequately sized bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Whisk well to combine. Chill and serve as desired.