By Danielle French

Fall Soups

 

Fall is my favourite time of year for soup. There is something about the cooler temperatures, we all yearn for the warmth of comfort food. The colours of the leaves and land match the vegetables that come out of the garden. I got this recipe from my friend, Kate many years ago. It is a little cumbersome to make because of roasting the peppers but it is well worth it. Most importantly, this recipe falls into the category of “Christine Friendly Foods” (#CFF) – watch for our new blog from Chris’ Corner: stories from a self professed food addict and our own South Pond Special Events Coordinator. It makes me feel healthier just knowing that!

 

 

I don’t know how over the years I began eating more and more meat. Meat is easy to cook. Add a salad and a potato or rice and it’s a balanced meal and as we all stopped eating so many carbs, just the salad. Grilled steak over salad, roasted salmon and a salad. I called my friend Judy yesterday complaining about boredom in the kitchen. “What are you cooking, Judy?” Salmon. Salmon and salad. Nice. What was I eating? Leftovers from my Rotary lunch – Tante Nati’s goulash, potatoes and carrots. Equally nice. This fall, I’m going to make a better effort to eat healthier, take meat out of the daily diet and see what happens.

One of the issues I see with this approach is that it takes more time to cook without meat. It means combining more food to get the proteins and other nutrients that we need – watch for our upcoming cooking class on this November 30th. I know that it is well worth it but I get busy throughout the day and leave making dinner until the end when I’m tired and have to go pick up Aubrey Rose or really just want to put my feet up. When the girls were little, I cooked in the morning after getting them ready for the day. I wasn’t as busy then but when I think about it, there is no reason that dinner last can’t be started at that time – at least in my schedule. Possibly I will find after a month of being better organized and eating healthier, it will be no more work than throwing chicken on the grill or salmon in the oven.

This past weekend, I pulled the carrot and roasted pepper soup recipe out because it is seasonal – I still have a lot of carrots in my garden and I had Shawn’s folks coming for dinner. Alma, Shawn’s mom, is pretty nutrition conscience and I knew she would appreciate it. I tried a new meatball concoction that was really delicious too. A recipe on that later! Shawn and his dad are meat guys so it all balanced out. Aubrey Rose and Carlyle who was home – they both enjoy most anything.

 


Roasted Red Pepper and Carrot Soup Recipe

  • 4 large peppers
  • 1 large onion diced
  • 1 Tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 small carrots diced and peeled
  • 1 medium potato peeled and diced
  • 4 cups vegetable stock (or chicken but then it’s not CFF)
  • pinch of curry powder (another option is to add 1 tablespoon grated ginger)
  • grated zest of one lemon
  • 6 tablespoons plain unsweetened yogourt

 

 

Instructions
Preheat oven to 450.
Line a baking tray with parchment. Lay down washed peppers and rub with olive oil. Bake in the oven until skins are blistered about 15-20 minutes.
Remove and transfer to a covered container to steam the peppers and loosens skins.
When the peppers are cool, remove skins and seeds and cut into small chuncks.
Meanwhile: in a saucepan, heat olive oil and saute onion until soft, do not brown. Add carrots and potatoes and stock and simmer over medium heat covered for about 15 minutes until the carrots are tender. Add peppers and curry or ginger. Simmer for an additional 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and blend with a blender. Return to the pot to keep warm.
Grate zest with the yogourt.
Serve the soup with a dollop of the lemon zest and yogourt mixture.

Makes 8 servings

 

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