The Modern Victory Garden

There really is nothing quite like soup when you are feeling a little worn out or under the weather.   Even better - soup that starts with good chicken stock and builds upon that base with an abundance of great tasting vegetables!   I really slept badly last night and was headachy and tired all day today as a result.   I decided some comfort food was in order for dinner tonight but did not want to spend much time in the kitchen to get it accomplished.   Inspired by the culinary efforts of a friend and colleague, I decided to make some tomato and roasted pepper soup with crusty toasted cheese sandwiches.   I modified the soup recipe to fit with what I have on hand and since I did not write down the recipe I was pretty much winging it – despite all that it turned out really delicious.              

Tomato & Roasted Red Pepper Soup

• ½ cup of chopped onion
• 2 large cloves of garlic, peeled and diced
• Olive oil (enough to coat the bottom of the pan)
• 1-quart jar of diced tomatoes (drained)
• 1 cup of roasted red peppers, diced
• ½ box of organic free-range chicken stock (box is 32 ounces)
• Dried basil (not sure how much I added really)
• Pinch of sugar (to taste as needed to cut the acid of the tomatoes a bit)
• Dried red pepper flakes (hot!) – as much or as little as you like

In a large heavy bottomed stockpot, sauté onion and garlic in the oil until it starts to become translucent.   Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a low boil.   As soon as the peppers are generally softened, use a stick (immersion) blender and blend the soup until it reaches a nice chunky puree consistency.   Continue to simmer on low heat for about 15 minutes or until the flavors are well blended.   Adjust seasonings as needed.   That's it!

I used up the last of the storage onions last weekend, so I am using diced frozen onions currently.    Hopefully the freezer supply will last me until the green onions are ready to start being harvested.   The roasted peppers are also from my freezer supplies and while many of them were red and yellow, I also used some roasted jalepeno peppers too.  So this was actually a "Tomato & Roasted Multi-Colored Pepper" soup!    The home canned tomatoes are from the pantry.   I am afraid I did not think to take pictures of this soup because my head is fuzzy this evening and my focus was just on cooking, eating, and getting to bed early.    I have managed two out of the three objectives so far!                 

The seedlings in the shop under lights are doing splendidly. I watered them last evening and checked on them after dinner tonight.   The cabbages and pac choi started last Saturday are substantially emerged.   I am going to leave the humidity dome cover on them for one more day and then pull it off.   The Chinese cabbages and kale I started in mid December are continuing to really size up.            

These will be planted up in the unheated greenhouse in less than two weeks.

I hope you are having a good week and enjoying some of the bounty of your garden in your daily meals too.