Cold soup

It's still very hot in Texas on the Gulf Coast, in part because the oceans are very warm all over the earth. The warm hot air blows inland off the Gulf, and our windows steam up...on the outside! When I left the house this morning, there was condensation on the door knob and the door lock!

So, we are not eating normal fall and winter food like you folks in the temperate zone. That's one reason I am still cooking from the September Gourmet.

One of the recipes was a cold soup recipe. It appeared in a menu all about the letter C. Yes, this is cheesy, but the other recipes were great: I made the chipotle chicken and the creamed corn also. This cold soup did not disappoint, and it's very easy.

The recipe calls for a kind of pepper called the cubanelle. I've seen these occasionally in stores, but I couldn't find one this time, so I used a Hatch pepper. Hatch peppers appear in stores in Texas in September and October. They are long, green, mild peppers from New Mexico. People frequently roast them. The other main ingredients were cucumbers and cashews. You puree them all together in the blender with some seasonings like garlic, a little vinegar, and olive oil.

Apparently cashews are a much loved by vegan chefs for the creaminess that they add to recipes when they're pureed. They had that effect on this soup. They added so much creaminess that I cut back on the amount of olive oil in the recipe.