Roasted Pepper Soup

One of my favorite Savannah restaurants is Cha Bella. While there on my last birthday, I had the soup special as an appetizer, roasted green pepper soup. It was a pureed soup with goat cheese. I loved it and decided to try my own version.

This time, I tried a nice mix of peppers– red and green bell peppers, cubanos, and poblano chilies.

I sliced the peppers in half and removed the seeds and pith, placing the pepper halves skin-up on a baking sheet. I tucked two cloves of garlic under one of the peppers to roast as well. I broiled the peppers for 10 minutes then put everything in a covered bowl to continue cooking. Meanwhile, I began to caramelize some onions. After 15 minutes, I removed the peppers’ skin and pureed them in a blender with a little bit of parsley, lots of thyme, salt, and pepper, adding the caramelized onions at the end.

Next time I will roast the peppers in two stages: the thin walled poblanos and cubanos at ten minutes and the thicker-walled bell peppers longer. The bell peppers weren’t as fully cooked as the other peppers, and so instead of a smooth texture, I had a chunkier soup. The velvet texture is one of the appeals of the original. I’m sure the original also contained a small amount of cream or olive oil to add smoothness and richness.

To finish, I topped with soup with extra thyme and a chunk of goat cheese. I ate my soup with these amazing cream biscuits from Smitten Kitchen, topped with creamed honey.  Enjoy!

 

Cloudy & Chili

To go with our rather gray, cool day, I decided to make a stew similar to chili using some ingredients I had hanging around my frig. I started by browning chunks of spicy goose sausage (courtesy of my Dad). Then I added chopped green pepper, onion, and celery (leftover from my parent’s visit). Once the veggies were sautéed, I added one can each of: kidney beans, black beans, and diced tomatoes. To spice the chili, I grabbed a can of verde salsa from the frig that was basically empty. I added water, shook it up, and added the “instant stock”. I also added about 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of taco sauce, leftover from our taco and margarita party. This was like adding tomato paste and spices all in one. A pinch of salt, pepper, and lots of cumin finished the dish. After about 10-15 minutes of simmering, the sausage chili was ready! I ate it over some crushed tortilla chips with a bottle of Mom’s homebrew. Enjoy!

 

roasted red pepper & chicken pizza

My latest pizza inspiration is probably the essence of pizza- it was simply made from what I had in the frig. The sauce was roasted bell peppers (various stages of green to red), pureed with basil, oregano, roasted garlic, salt and pepper to taste, and enough water to make it go. After saucing the pizza, I added chicken chunks (leftovers), Gorgonzola, and Parmesan. I wanted fresh goat cheese instead of Gorgonzola, but that’s what was available, and I wasn’t driving way out of my way for one ingredient. The other twist on this pizza was a thin crust, rather than my usual thick crust. Same recipe, just divided into four sections (not two) and rolled thin with a rolling pin.

Enjoy!