Zingy Pepper Soup

I’ve still got a lot of peppers left from last week’s share. Maybe you do, too. I thought I’d make some savory pepper soup; this cool weather is just right for a hot and spicy soup.

The recipe is from a cookbook titled The Vegetarian Epicure. A friend of ours gave it to us 29 years ago, solely because he was dating a girl who was a vegetarian at the time. He was gamely eating soy burgers, but I think he knew the food could be better, and he knew we grew a lot of vegetables in the backyard. He was probably angling for a dinner invitation with an appetizing eggplant entree. Maybe.

Anyway, the cookbook has served me well over the years, and this pepper soup recipe is one of my favorites. Use a mixture of sweet and hot peppers and it will still have that zing, without making you cry for mercy as your eyes water.

Pepper Soup
1 cup peppers, finely chopped
2 lbs. ripe tomatoes
1 onion, chopped
1/12 cups water
3 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons flour
1 ½ tsp fresh grated lemon peel
Salt and black pepper
1 cup cooked brown rice
Sour cream
Fresh dill, parsley, or basil

Pick out an assortment of small and medium sized peppers—yellow, orange, red, and green, sweet and hot. The more hot peppers in the assortment, the more fiery the soup. You’ll need about 10 to 12 peppers. Wash them, cut them open, discard all the seeds and pulp, and chop the rest very fine (you can use a food processor). You should have 1 cup of finely chopped peppers.

Scaled the tomatoes and peel them. Chop the onion. Now, put all the vegetables, including the minced peppers, into the food processor and puree them. Transfer them to a pot, add the water, and simmer the mixture for about 20 minutes.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan and stir in the flour to make a roux. Cook it awhile, stirring all the time, and then pour in a little of the hot vegetable mixture. Whisk it to make a smooth sauce, then pour it back into the soup. Continue to stir and simmer the soup mixture for about 10 minutes.

Add the lemon peel, grind in the fresh black pepper, and add salt to taste. Stir in the cooked brown rice, heat through, and serve the soup garnished with a dollop of sour cream and some chopped herbs. Serves 4.

Up to Your Knees in Tomatoes? Try Unpeeled Tomato Salsa

I’ve done well keeping up with the produce this season—until this week. We went out to eat twice. Big mistake; that’s all it takes for the tomatoes and peppers and okra and everything else to start piling up.

I had used oodles of tomatoes making tomato bisque and more gazpacho over the weekend, but there were still plenty. I had the idea of making jambalaya, a great thing to make when all sorts of produce is piling up, but I had put it off. Suddenly it was Thursday and there were still a LOT of tomatoes around, even though I put them in eggs, on every sandwich, in cottage cheese, layered with mozzarella and basil, and on and on.

Salsa sounded good, but peeling a bunch of tomatoes to make it did not. So, I thought, let’s experiment. I got out my Swiss Zyllis vegetable chopper (the kind they sell at fancy kitchenware parties; a neighbor lured me to one of those parties years ago, so I have one). I chopped a lot of tomatoes, cored but unskinned, and a few peppers, plus some garlic and onion. Then I added some herbs and spices, and I think the experiment was successful. It’s a bit hot, but not uncomfortably so—serve it with a little sangria and it will balance out nicely, I think.

Quick and Easy Unpeeled Tomato Salsa

8-10 very ripe tomatoes, cored* but not peeled
2-3 bell peppers, green or red or purple or yellow
2 red chile peppers
2 jalapenos, roasted
4 cloves garlic
1 small onion
1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano (you could substitute chopped fresh basil)
½ tsp. chili powder
½ tsp. coriander
¼ tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. lime juice

*Core the tomatoes by cutting out the white center in a cone shape around the stem end of the fruit.

Slice the tomatoes, then chop them finely with the food chopper. Toss them in a good size bowl, pulling out any large pieces of skin that don’t get chopped. Roast the jalapenos by holding them over a gas flame with a fork, or put them under the broiler for a couple of minutes. Scrape off the black bits. Seed all the peppers, the bell peppers, chile peppers, and roasted jalapenos, and chop them up finely. Throw them in the bowl. Chop the garlic and onions and add them to the bowl. Stir things up with a spoon, add the spices and lime juice, and enjoy with chips. Makes about 3-4 cups.

Addendum: Refrigerate overnight (or at least for several hours) to let the flavors meld before serving this salsa.