Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup (Recipe)

So it’s time to do the weekly clean-out-the-fridge thingy to make sure there aren’t things laying forgotten in the fridge. This afternoon’s find: 3 red peppers whose skins are starting to get wrinkly, a box of also wrinkly grape tomatoes, and a going-to-yellow bunch of parsley. Hmm…maybe it’s time to cook another soup. I don’t have enough tomatoes to make just a tomato soup nor red peppers to do a roasted red pepper soup, so I guess I’m gonna to have a marriage of recipes and do a roasted red pepper and tomato soup.

To make this soup, I looked through three recipes, and took elements of what I liked from each recipe. The three recipes are, Roasted Red Pepper Soup and Grilled Tomato Soup from the recipe book The Joy of Cooking, and Nigella Lawson’s Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup Recipe. I have tried these two recipes from The Joy of Cooking before and I think the addition of fennel seeds, rice, wine and carrots in the roasted pepper soup recipe greatly added to the taste and gives you the nice texture without the need to add flour or cream to thicken the soup.

Easy Cream of Mushroom soup! You won’t need Campbell’s ever again. (Recipe)

I’ve never tried making soup till I got my stick blender. They have always looked like they need a lot of work, especially the creamy ones. After I (finally) bought my stick blender, it’s like a new area of cooking opened up to me. I HAVE to make sure I put my blender to good use (lest someone starts nagging that there are too many things in my kitchen…) so I started looking up the ‘Soup’ section of my recipe books and realised that, hey, you know what? Soups can be one of the easiest and quickest thing to prepare AND they can be really cheap and healthy food too! Of course, just don’t choose to make lobster bisque or something if you are in a hurry. A few days ago, I discovered another soup recipe that is so quick and easy to prepare – Cream of Mushroom soup (no blending required).