Mama Hester's roasted red pepper soup

I love it when my readers write in with a request or a recipe. This soup sounds particularly delicious and super healthy. I'll have to make it soon!

Mother Hester writes:

Here's a recipe for roasted red pepper soup that I keep on hand and make almost every week as I take my lunch to work. I eat mostly vegetarian and if my boys want something (meat or fried) that I don't want to eat then I fix what they want and heat up some of this soup for me.

The people I work with beg for some when I bring this for lunch because it's so aromatic. I started making this because a man I work with is diabetic and overweight and is supposed to be on a low-fat diet. He complained that low-fat food didn't taste good and that he couldn't eat low fat.

I made this soup, brought it to work and offered him some when he commented on how good it smelled. After he ate two bowls of it, I told him that it was low fat and good for him. He is now trying some of my low-fat recipes. I'm not sure how much fat is in it, but I think that the olive oil is the only fat.

Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Ingredients:

• (1) 10-oz jar of roasted red bell peppers if you're in a hurry, or you can roast five of them yourself
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 5 cloves garlic, chopped or sometimes I use two whole heads roasted.
• 1 large onion, chopped I like to use a sweet yellow onion like Vidalia
• 1 cup celery, chopped
• 1 cup carrots, chopped (or you can use pre-shredded from produce department)
• 1 large potato, thinly sliced (I leave the peel on). This helps to thicken the soup when pureed.
• 1 bay leaf
• (1) 6 oz. can of low sodium tomato paste
• (5) 14 oz. cans of vegetable stock (I use 100% fat free broth.)
• fresh basil leaves
• fat free sour cream or fat free yogurt cheese

(I'm sure you probably know how to make yogurt cheese, but in case you don't, just take a 8 oz container of plain fat free yogurt and dump it into a strainer that is lined with cheesecloth and set the whole thing over a bowl.  Wrap the top with Saran Wrap and keep in the fridge for at least 24 hours, but up to 48 hrs until the whey drains and you will be left with something that is the consistancy of cream cheese).

Directions:

1. Empty the jar of red peppers into a strainer placed over a bowl or in the sink. Once they have drained I slice them open and remove any seeds because I don't like the seeds in my soup - they don't puree at all.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large pot (4 or 5 quart). Add the onion, celery, carrots and garlic (when using fresh, if using roasted then add after the vegetable stock), lightly salt and pepper and cook for about 10 minutes.
3. Add the potato, vegetable stock, tomato paste and bay leaf and bring to a boil over high heat.
4. Lower the heat and simmer until the vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes.
5. Add the roasted red peppers and simmer for 15 more minutes.
6. Remove the bay leaf and process in a food processor or blender until smooth.
7. Taste and add salt or pepper if needed. (I usually don't add any additional salt or pepper.)

To garnish: add a dollop of fat-free sour cream or homemade fat-free yogurt cheese, chop the basil into ribbons and sprinkle on top of soup that's been ladled into a bowl.

This soup is very good heated up in the microwave the next day.

Estimated cooking time: about 50 minutes.

Variations:

• Sometimes I use two whole roasted garlic bulbs instead of the garlic cloves since they're sweeter.
• For added kick add one chipolte pepper in adobe sauce when adding the vegetable stock.
• Add leftover vegetables that might be in the refrigerator, like baked squash, leftover brown rice or black beans. The black beans will give it a darker color when you puree it and will add lots of fiber.

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