Roasted Red Pepper Soup (available on this week's menu)

This is one of my favorite soups of all time! Velvety, and smooth, almost a creamy texture yet no cream added. It's quick, especially if you have an immersion (hand) blender. You can make basically any veggie into a soup by following this simple recipe. OK, here's how to make it:

Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Ingredients

1. 8 red bell peppers
2. olive oil, salt and pepper
   
3. 1 large yellow onion
4. 4 tbsp. butter
   
5. 1 tsp. chile powder
6. 8 ounce can crushed tomatoes
7. 1 quart chicken stock- preferably homemade :)

Directions

1. Drizzle pepper with olive oil, salt and pepper
   
2. Roast the peppers- On a grill, on the grates of your gas stove, or in the oven, rotating often
   
3. You know the peppers are done when the outsides are charred black all over
4. Allow to cool, then peel the skins off (this should be easy if you really let the skins get charred), Slice the peppers into 1-inch pieces (discard any and all seeds)
   
5. Meanwhile, slice the (onions roughly) and throw them into a large, hot cast iron pot with the butter, and a sprinkling of salt and pepper
6. Caramelize them 6-8 minutes, until they are a nice brown color
7. Add the chile powder, mix around a minute
8. Deglaze the pan with some stock (this means add the stock to the pan so that it sizzles off those yummy brown bits stuck to the bottom) and scrape off any remaining brown bits
9. Add the tomatoes, sliced peppers and remaining stock.
10. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer. Allow to simmer 30-40 mins
11. With the immersion blender, blend the soup to a creamy consistency (if you do not have an immersion blender, you MUST allow for the soup to cool before placing it into a blender/food processor for blending (I ruined a perfectly good food processor by ignoring this advice--trust me!)
12. Re-heat, add as much salt and cracked black pepper as it needs, and serve

My Roasted Red Pepper Soup is available for purchase this week at: www.EvolutionCatering.com