Here are 4 recipes that make the most of fresh veggies.

When the produce at your local store, farmers market or your own garden is at its peak, it’s time to make fresh vegetables the star of your meal.

It’s time to make summertime soups.

In the summer, you want to make the most out of your produce by bringing out its flavor in the most pure and natural way. The fewer adornments, the less complexity, the better. Other flavors should not distract you from the garden-fresh goodness of your bounty.

As an added benefit, simple flavors usually come from simple cooking techniques.

In other words, summertime soups are both delicious and easy to make. Win-win.

I recently made four summertime soups. Only one of them was chilled, but each, in its own way, was unforgettable.

We’ll start with the chilled soup first. It’s called Beet-Fennel-Ginger Soup, and along with beets, fennel and ginger it is also made with cabbage and vegetable stock.

“That’s borsch,” said a colleague. “You just made borsch” in March.

“It’s not borsch,” I said. “It isn’t just beet soup, it also has cabbage and vegetable stock…”

OK, it’s borsch. But this version is made without meat, so it is a hearty vegetarian meal — or vegan, if you forgo the dollop of yogurt on top.

It is also lighter in tone and texture than borsch I have made in the past. While it still has the sweetly earthy undertone that comes from the beets, it is also enlivened by the exotic, anise taste of fennel and the finishing warm bite of ginger.

When puréed together — and these recipes are going to require a lot of puréeing — the ingredients become better than their individual parts. The soup is also light and smooth, perfect for a warm summer’s evening.

I went the elegant route for my next effort, Asparagus and Shiitake Mushroom Soup. The recipe came from the now-sadly-closed Trellis restaurant, which in its heyday was one of the best restaurants in Virginia.

I have made asparagus soup many times, and loved it. I have made mushroom soup many times, and loved it. But never have I thought to combine the two into one incredible dish. That takes the kind of culinary genius possessed by Marcel Desalniers, the pioneering original chef-owner of the Trellis.

The soup that results is magnificently subtle, playing the delicate, fresh, springlike taste of asparagus off the satisfying umami burr of the shiitake mushrooms.

As befits the restaurant that also created the dessert called Death By Chocolate, this soup is not for people counting their Weight Watchers’ points. A rich roux turns the texture of the soup to velvet, and the flavors are all tied together by a cup of heavy cream.

I used half-and-half to save a few calories. That way, I felt virtuous and healthful, even though I wasn’t.

My next soup also came from a famous restaurant. Cream of Zucchini and Almond Soup was a dish served at the Walnut Room in the flagship State Street location of the Marshall Field’s store in Chicago.

And again I am in awe at the creativity of chefs.

Who would ever think to combine the grassiness of zucchini with the warm, nutty crunch of almonds? And then who would think to put it together in a cream soup?

But that’s not where the brilliance of this dish ends. The soup stands out because of the subtle inclusion of sweet spice: a restrained mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.

It’s a soup unlike any you’ve had before, unless you’ve been to the Walnut Room.

My last soup is the easiest of them all to make. Sweet Pea Soup also has the freshest taste — even though it uses frozen peas. You could use fresh peas if you can find them.

All you do is simmer together the peas, some sweet red pepper, a hunk of onion and a carrot in chicken stock, vegetable stock or even ham stock. When the vegetables are thoroughly cooked, but just barely, you puree it to a silky smooth texture.

Salt it generously and serve it, if you want, with croutons or crumbled bacon.

I used both. It seemed like a summery thing to do.