Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Ingredients

2 13-ounce jars roasted sweet red peppers
or 6 freshly roasted peppers

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 cups chopped onions

2 whole garlic cloves

1 slice (about the size of a nickel) fresh ginger, peeled and chopped

½ to 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon salt

1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes

1 14-ounce can reduced fat coconut milk

2 cups chicken broth or water

1 red bell peppers, freshly roasted

1 zucchini, shredded

1 or 2 carrots, peeled and shredded

1 or 2 parsnips, peeled and shredded

Directions

Cool and peel the freshly roasted peppers. If using canned peppers, drain, rinse well, and set aside.

Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes (adjust amount for desired spiciness), and salt. Cook for about five minutes, stirring occasionally, until onion is softened.

Remove pan from heat and add coconut milk, tomatoes, and roasted peppers (save the one freshly roasted pepper). Puree until smooth in a blender or food processor.  Add broth or water.

Peel and dice the one roasted red pepper. Sauté lightly the shredded vegetables. Add one half of them and the diced pepper to the soup and use remainder as garnish or simply use as garnish. Warm and simmer the soup for about five to ten minutes.

Serve immediately or the next day. Can be served hot or cold.
One day in the fridge does improve the flavor.

Recipe development

This soup is derived from the "roasted red pepper coconut soup" recipe in Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special, one of my favorite soup cookbooks. I like to try out new recipes as written and then experiment with the same recipe later.

What I added or changed:

Ginger

I’ve had pureed vegetable soups with ginger before and thought that the addition might be good here. However, I was very gingerly with the ginger (sorry about the bad pun) so the ginger flavor is very subtle. Ginger lovers could add more.

Chicken broth

This would probably be good as a vegetarian/vegan soup but I like the fullness of flavor that chicken broth can add. I make my own stock, which tends to be concentrated, so in this case I used 1 cup broth and 1 cup water.

Extra vegetables for texture:

When I first cooked the Moosewood recipe, my daughter complained that she did not care for a smoothly pureed soup; she preferred to have some texture in the soup. At that dinner we were also serving sautéed carrots and parsnips, which my sister-in-law threw into the soup and raved about the result. Thus I decided to add some vegetables at the end. I would have gone with carrots, zucchini, and the diced pepper, but added the parsnip because of my sister-in-law’s on the spot experiment. Shredding seemed like a nice texture and easy to do with a food processor.

The experimentation with this soup was highly successful. The soup disappeared quickly.