The purée button is my favorite

In the last year, I've learned how much I melt over a well crafted soup. There's soup and then there's soup! I can strangely relate to the passion the Soup Nazi put into his creations on Seinfeld. I can distinctly recall some of the most flavorful and perfectly concocted soups I've had recently (and for when you're in the Bay Area, many of those have been seemingly simple and utterly astounding sips of bliss at Digs Bistro).

Attempting to create my own bowl of fabulousness has become a new found love affair almost entirely attributed to the purée button. I can't really explain it in any logical, reasonable manner that will make any sense, but I just love that darn button! KK will tell you that I actually get a bit disheartened when we make a soup that doesn't call for any purée festevities of any kind - as if it's less of a soup because it isn't puréed! KK dreams of a stand mixer; mine might be an immersion mixer. Regardless, KK says we can stop buying soups in a can since ours have turned out so well. I say it's because of the purée button. But all the fresh ingredients and significantly less reliance on salt to add flavor probably give us an edge up on the canned stuff too.

You'll find the bulk of these ingredients fresh in the summer months. And just a quick lesson learned for today:

• Lime juice is AMAZING. Try it fresh squeezed over a veggie pizza... holy goodness in your mouth!!!

Southwestern Corn Chowder

Serves 4. Or 3 if you like big bowls of soup like me.

1/2 cup sweet onion chopped

Sauté in 1 tablespoon olive oil in a soup pot until soft.

2.5 cups corn (equates to roughly 5 small-ish cobs)

3 cups chicken or vegetable stock

Add and cook for 10 minutes. Remove 1 cup of solids & 1/3 cup of broth and place in blender. Purée until smooth. Return purée to soup pot and and heat until nearly boiling.

1 medium red sweet pepper chopped

1 small tomato peeled, seeded, and chopped

Stir in and heat another minute.

1/2 fresh lime

3 tablespoons fresh cilantro finely chopped

Squeeze lime into soup and top with cilantro immediately before serving. Garnish options include Tobasco sauce, lime wedges, plain yogurt, or sour cream. (Or if you're classy like us, the salt from a Ritz cracker was a perfect match!)