CUCUMBER-YOGHURT SOUP

ROBERTA'S REVISED, REORGANIZED AND ANNOTATED
MOOSEWOOD'S CUCUMBER-YOGHURT SOUP
a good day-before recipe

I make the soup in two batches because Moosewood's amounts are too big to fit in my blender.

Prep time: Moosewood says 10-15 minutes. It took me more like 30.
Refrigeration time: A few hours or overnight.

Take out of the cupboard or fridge or tap
     HONEY
     SALT
     PEPPER (not in Moosewood but a little white pepper or, for
          contrast, black, is nice)
     2 c. YOGHURT
     2 c. WATER

Later, when ready to serve, if you like garnishing, you will need
     CHIVES or SCALLIONS

Prepare
     CUCUMBERS, (2 x) 1.5 cucumbers, about 2.5 lb total: peel, seed and chop coarsely. I slice the cucumber vertically and use an apple corer to remove the seeds. For the whole recipe, I use 3 largish cucumbers, 12-15 oz apiece, to get the 4 c total specified by Moosewood. The reason to chop is so that you can measure your cucumber by volume and so that the blender doesn't overheat during the pureeing.
     MINT LEAVES: remove tough stems and tear the leaves into blender-friendly size. Amount? I use (2 x) 1-3 leaves, depending on how big they are. The soup is quite minty if the leaves are too big. Moosewood said "several" leaves for the whole recipe.
     FRESH DILL: remove tough stems and pull apart larger sprigs to blender-friendly size. Amount? Moosewood said 1/4 tsp dill for the whole 2 x. I assume that meant dried. I prefer fresh dill. For the first batch I used 2 small sprigs. That didn't seem dilly enough. For the next batch I used 3 medium-large sprigs. The dill taste was faint but pleasant. (2 x) 3 average sprigs is probably good.
     GARLIC (optional; I omitted it): mince (2 x) 1/2 clove

To make the soup, puree in blender in TWO batches, each batch having
      2 c CUCUMBERS
      1 c YOGHURT (I use whole milk or low fat, not nonfat)
      1 c WATER
      MINT see above
      DILL see above
      HONEY 1/2 T (or a little more)
      3/4 tsp SALT (original full amount was 1 1/2 - 2 tsp)
      GARLIC (unless, like me, you omit)

Put soup into a bowl or pot with a cover. Cover and refrigerate a few hours or overnight.

Serve cold, garnished (optional) with chives or scallions chopped pretty fine, maybe about 1/4 tsp per person. Very refreshing and tasty.

Makes about 8 cups. Serves 6-8.

Prints on 1 sheet at 60%.
rjm 5/24/15