It sometimes surprises me how many strawberries we go through in my house durring the summer months. Most of them get eaten straight out of the baskets or pureed into smoothies and popsicles but I also love to play around with strawberries in all kinds of recipes from salads to jams to cakes. One of my most requested recipes is a strawberry soup with basil cream. The fusion of strawberries and basil is one of my favorite flavor combinations. This soup is deliciously unique. People are always surprised when I serve this refreshing strawberry soup as a first course and then go back for seconds, asking for the recipe.
I usually make the recipe dairy (I served more than six quarts of this soup over Shavout), but when I saw that the theme of this month’s Kosher Connection recipe challenge was croutons I immediately knew that I wanted to make a sweeter parve version of my strawberry soup to serve with pound cake croutons as a dessert. It is nice, light, refreshing dessert, perfect for a summer lunch. All the components can be made ahead and just assembled when ready to serve. The parve version of this soup has a hint of coconut flavor from the coconut greek yogurt but it pairs nicely with the flavors of strawberry and lemon present in the soup. If you are a bit hesitant about the combination of basil and strawberries I recommend you try it, but if it isn’t for you the soup is great without the cream as well.
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