Avocado-Buttermilk Soup with Chicken

This is a cold soup. A what? A cold soup. Weird, I know. And yes…there is a hair in mine…which I didn’t notice until now when I went to crop a photo. Sigh. What can you do – this is real-life cooking! Anyway, I think this was the second cold soup I’ve ever had, it is is amazing. It is more amazing with quesadillas…but that is a recipe for later.

Avocado-Buttermilk Soup with Chicken  – Serves 4

This was taken from Cooking Light magazine, but they wanted to use crab. Not only am I not enthused about crab, but crab is expensive and I had chicken. so there.

• 3/4 c. fat-free buttermilk (or just buttermilk…)
• 1/2 c. chopped fresh tomatillos (or just a tomato…we made this both ways and couldn’t tell the difference other than it wasn’t quite as green and regular tomatoes are way cheaper)
• 1/2 c. fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth (or just make some with bouillon…)
• 3/8 tsp salt
• 2 ripe, peeled avocados, pitted
• 1 serrano pepper, seeded
• 1 small garlic clove (or again, cheat with the refrigerator-jar-version)
• 2 Tbls minced red bell pepper (I happened to have some left-over green pepper so we did that instead…red looks prettier)
• 1 Tbls fresh chives (we used green onions instead)
• 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp grated orange rind
• 1 chicken breast, chopped and browned in 2 tsp of olive oil and a slice of the orange (after you grated your orange rind)

Directions

1. Place first 7 ingredients in a blender; process until smooth.
2. Combine bell pepper and remaining ingredients; toss gently to combine. Spoon about 3/4 c. soup into each of four bowls; top each with about 1/3 of chicken mixture.