Not-Just Red Pepper Soup

My husband and I recently took a trip to Italy where I tasted this incredible soup in a restaurant called Roscioli in Rome. It was dairy free, but incredibly creamy and had a real complexity to the flavours. The soup at the restaurant had little shrimp and chunks of salami in it (it tastes better than it sounds), which I haven't done for this recipe. Honestly, I don't know how close this is, I just know that it's tasty.

Cooking time: 1-1.5 hours altogether
Working time: 30 minutes
Servings: 6-8

Ingredients

• 2 Red bell peppers, seeded and chopped into 1" sections
• 1.5 shallots, peeled and chopped into 1" sections
• 5 cloves garlic, unpeeled
• 1 can whole tomatoes
• 2 cups homemade turkey stock
• 1 tbsp salt (or more to taste)
• 1/2 tsp shrimp paste
• Olive oil to coat veggies and 1 tbsp for soup

Let's do it!

1. Toss the veggies in some olive oil and roast in the toaster oven on the toast setting until everything gets soft and you start to see a bit of charring. Remove garlic peels once cool enough to touch
2. Meanwhile, deseed the tomatoes. How I do this is I pour the entire can into a large bowl and open each tomato with my hands and scrape out the seeds, then shake the tomato out in the can liquid until the seeds dislodge. I put the cleaned tomato into the soup pot. After doing this with all the tomatoes, I pour the can water through a sieve and use a wooden spoon to moosh any leftover tomato bits through, while keeping the seeds out. It's labour intensive, but it's worth it.
3. Add everything into the soup pot and blend using an immersion blender BEFORE TURNING ON THE STOVE. Unless you want to splash molten soup all over yourself.
4. Simmer for about 30 minutes or until the flavours are blended to your liking.
5. If you're not too picky, the soup is more or less good to go. If you're going for the the smoothest soup in the world, push the soup through a super-fine drum sieve, which will take about 10-15 minutes of active stirring, but will result in a velvety, bright texture. 
6. At this point, I added some water to thin it out a bit and to dilute the soup, since it was very strong in flavour.

There it is, a very bright, tasty soup that will have guests asking "what... what exactly is in this?", but in a good way!

Fajita-rama

Note, the white things are leftover brown rice thrown in.

Fajitas are always a winner in our house, due to the husband's fondness for wraps. They're also pretty easy to make. Here's a recipe I made yesterday that yields about 4-5 servings.

Ingredients

3 large red peppers, seeded and sliced into strips

1 large green pepper, seeded and sliced into strips

2 medium red onions, peeled and sliced into strips

2 chicken thighs, deboned and sliced into strips

1 cup diced smoked sausage

3 tablespoons or more of Tex-Mex seasoning mix (recipe to follow)

Tex-Mex seasoning mix:

1 part paprika

2 parts cumin

1 part cayenne

1 part oregano

2 parts garlic powder

Put it all in a jar with a tight fitting lid. I like to keep a batch of this in the kitchen to quickly throw together tacos, fajitas or chili.

Let's do it!

Put the meat in a container with a tablespoon of Tex Mex powder. Mix well and let marinate while you're cooking the veggies.

Heat a large pot/wok to medium high and add enough oil to lightly coat the bottom. 

Throw in the veggies and saute, stirring until really soft. This took an agonizing amount of time because I started with low heat. Don't make my mistake. Start high and keep stirring! I also threw the bones in with the veggies for added flavour.

When the veggies are soft, throw in 2 tablespoons of seasoning and stir until well mixed. Add the meat and cook until cooked, maybe another 10 minutes. At this point, taste and adjust for salt and seasoning. Add hot peppers if you like it spicy.

Lunch it up!

I pack the fajita mix in a tight-fitting container and put a couple of tortillas in a ziploc bag. To eat, heat them up separately. The tortillas take about 10 seconds, the filling will take about two minutes, since it's got meat in it.

Optional: If you're a fancy pants, bring along some sprigs of parsley, a couple wedges of lime and an avocado (cut it up at work to reduce grossness)

Enjoy!

Chicken and Red Peppers with Rice and Sauteed Asparagus

I don't want to alarm anyone here, but I need to tell you all something very important: it is currently asparagus season. Asparagus is woody and gross the rest of the year, but in June, it is amazing. Go buy some now!

This recipe is a way simpler Chicken Basquaise, though it would seem that it takes the same amount of time. But, I stress, that it's still way easier.

Chicken and Red Peppers
Ingredients
1 chicken thigh
3 red peppers, seeded and sliced thinly
1 onion, sliced thinly
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tsp paprika
water
cooked rice. I should note that this was my first successful attempt in making basmati rice. The key? Read the package and follow the directions. What a crazy world!

Allons-y!
Heat some oil in a pan on low and throw in throw in the red peppers, onion and garlic. We want to caramelize these, so keep the stove on very low and stir it every once in a while. This step takes maybe 30 minutes. If you have the confidence, go read a book or something, but keep your ears and nose sharp for loud sizzling or a strong pepper smell. This means that it's burning, or very close to it. If it's about to burn, add some water to the pan and scrape up the brown bits. Actually, you're going to want to do this the entire time.

When everything is nice and soft, and the onions are little tangled messes, stir in the paprika and put in your chicken, skin side down. If everything looks very dry, add maybe 1/4 cup of water. Cover and let this slowly cook for about 10 minutes. Check for burning and turn the chicken every 10 minutes until cooked, maybe another 30 minutes. It should be falling off the bone.

When that's done, extract the bone (I used a pair of tongs and a fork) and shred the meat a bit. Stir it around so that it's covered in sauce. Serve with rice!


Asparagus!
There are a lot of ways to make asparagus, but first, some basics. When buying asparagus, try to get the thinnest ones. Also, make sure they are nice and green, and don't look like they're going to crumble in your hand as soon as you get home.

When you're ready to cook them, break off the bottom ends. This will ensure that you actually break off the woody parts, otherwise you'll be chewing this stuff forever. I like to give the stems a good peel, as well.

Heat a pan with some oil and toss the asparagus in. Toss to cook evenly, sprinkle with a dash of salt and put on a nice plate. You can also cook these on a grill or in the oven. Squeeze some lemon on it before you're ready to eat.

I like it chopped up in salads, or just as a nice side dish. Just make sure you're not giving any urine samples in the next couple of days, or you will make some lab technician's job even more unpleasant than usual.

Beef and pepper tacos

I know what you're thinking. "How could you possibly have crispy tacos at work? Do you work at Google?!" The answer is "No, but I do work in a place that has a toaster!" There's a trick to making tacos at work, which I will reveal later on this post. But first, the filling.

Ingredients
1 orange bell pepper, seeded and sliced
1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced
1 red onion, peeled and sliced into strips
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 steak (or any other meat)
1 tbsp chili powder
salt to taste
hot sauce to taste

taco shells

Optional: Sour cream, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, avocados, etc. I am extremely lazy so I had none of these.

Let's do it!
Heat a non-stick pan (I use a seasoned wok, no teflon) with oil on medium high and throw in the peppers. Fry for about 10 minutes to soften. While this is happening, pound the steak with a meat mallet (heh) to soften it up. Cut into thin slices. Toss in the onion and garlic (these burn easily, which is why you see these black bits in my taco filling) and fry until soft. Add the chili powder and sautee for another minute or so. Add the beef and cook for about 5 minutes, or until done. Season with salt and hot sauce.

Lunch it up!
Throw in a container and bring some taco shells to work. We're going to do this!

If you have a toaster at work, then you can have some nice, crispy tacos. If not, bring some flour tortillas. Turn the toaster to the very lowest setting. Put one taco, open side down so that the two sides go into each slot. Watch this carefully, when it starts to turn colour, pop it out. Do the same with the other taco (I'm assuming you're eating two.)

When that one's finished, put them both into each slot, fold side down. Again, watch carefully. When it's done, it might be tricky to get them out. Use a wooden chopstick if you can, or a knife, but BE CAREFUL. Apparently people get electrocuted by putting metal things into toasters. I've never seen it happen in real life, but there were a few PSAs about it when I was a kid.

Next step: fill taco and consume.

Chicken Basquaise on Rice

This recipe can be described as one of the greatest hits in this house. Nathan's a fan, I'm a fan and it reheats really well. It's based on this recipe from Chow. It consists of chicken cooked in a pipérade.

Ingredients:

2 strips of bacon, chopped
1 onion, peeled and sliced into thin strips
2 red peppers sliced into thin strips
3 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
3 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 bay leaf
1 tsp thymee
2 tsp paprika

1 chicken leg, deboned, bone reserved

Cooked rice

Let's do it!
Heat the bacon in the pan to extract the oil.

Cook the onion in the oil for about 5 minutes.

Add peppers, herbs, and garlic. Saute for 5 minutes. Add chicken bones, cover and simmer until peppers and onions are soft.

Add chicken meat (chopped), cover and simmer for another 10-15 minutes until it's cooked.

Lunch it up!

Put some rice in a container and top with the sauce, taking out the chicken bones and bay leaf.