Summer Tomato Soup with Jalapeño, Corn, and Peaches

Every summer since I moved to Phoenix, sometime around August I have become obsessed with hot foods prepared at high temperatures. After P and I returned from a 3,000+ miles road trip through Arizona, Utah, Montana, Idaho, and Nevada last week, I immediately made this delicious tomato and zucchini rice gratin. (Highly recommend it. A little labor-intensive, but I did everything in my cast-iron skillet which helped.) Then I baked some savory zucchini and sun-dried tomato muffins that I had hoped to post about, but sadly I didn't really like them.

Keep in mind it was 115+ for the past several days in Phoenix. Even our amazingly high-performing 1970s chiller was having a hard time keeping up. Lucky for me, and for you, on Tuesday the temperature dropped to around 106.  With that wave of cool air, haha, I was brave enough to go for heat again and make this delicious summer tomato soup. I've had it in my mind ever since we bought some roadside peaches from farmers in New Meadows, Idaho.

Ingredients

1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced

5 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 jalepeño, cleaned, de-seeded, and chopped

1 leek, thinly sliced (this was leftover from another dinner, you could leave it out)

2 ears of corn with kernels sawed off

1-2 peaches, sliced
Roughly 56 oz. of canned or jarred fire-roasted tomatoes (if using cans, look for cans free of BPA)

1 can coconut milk

3 Tablespoons butter
Juice of  1/2 lemon

Ground ginger

Sea salt

Crushed red pepper

Avocado, for garnishing

Sharp white cheddar, for garnishing

Process

Melt the butter in your soup pot. Add onion, garlic, jalepeño, and leek (if using), with a good shake of salt and crushed pepper and several good shakes of ginger. Cook on medium heat for 10 or so minutes.

In the meantime open all of your jars or cans of tomatoes. Pour into your soup pot, along with about 1/2 the can of coconut milk. Squeeze 1/2 lemon over the soup. Simmer for 10 or so minutes. Taste. At this point I used one of the empty cans to add water, and also added more spices and the rest of the coconut milk.

Add your sliced peaches and simmer for another few minutes. Then, immersion blend until the soup is fairly creamy, but with some texture. Add the corn kernels and stir well.

Serve with avocado slices and a good sprinkle (or blanket, ha) of sharp white cheddar.

Considerations for food allergies and ethics: Vegetarian and gluten free. Replace the cooking butter with olive oil and skip the cheese if you are vegan.