Roasted Pepper Soup

I was listening to the radio on the way to work the other morning.  Wednesday mornings they have a chef come on the morning show for about five minutes and give a recipe of the week.  I always try to catch this feature, because he cooks my kind of food, quick and hearty.

His last recipe caught my attention, because it was one of those, that I had never thought of, and sounded like something neat to try - Roasted Pepper Soup.  Now I'm not certain you could actually say it fits into the category of quick -- the roasting and cooling process does take time, but not much effort.  Because I was in the truck, I had to use my memory, so I'm quite sure I have altered his recipe considerably, but this one works too.

Good fresh ingredients

Ingredients:

4 or 5 large bell peppers (yellow, orange, red -- your choice)
1 liter carton of chicken stock
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon of mixed spices (oregano, chili powder, dry mustard - whatever others you prefer)

Wash the peppers and place in a baking dish.  Place in the oven at 400 degrees F for 1 hour.  At the forty-five minute mark, flip the peppers over to cook evenly.  Of course any energy conscious person will do this while they are cooking a roast for dinner, then the peppers are ready for tomorrow's soup. The radio chef, suggested you could roast the peppers on the barbecue as well, but you would have to watch, so as not to scorch them severely.

Be sure to save the juices left over.

Allow the roasted peppers to cool for at least half an hour.

Peel the skins off, remove the stem and the seeds.  The skins come off very quickly and easily after the roasting process.

Perhaps not the most attractive, but delicious!

Dice the onion and mince the garlic.  Add to your blender, along with the lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce.  Puree.

Add the roasted pepper flesh to the blender.  Make sure you add any of the syrup that came out of the peppers into the roasting process as well. Once more puree.

To a large soup dish, pour the blender contents, the chicken stock and the spices.  Bring to a low boil and simmer.

Serve hot.  The peppers gives quite a strong, hearty flavour, not unlike tomato soup, but unique in its own way.

And that is about all I have to say for today.

Musings and meanderings from the Musical Gardener.