Red Pepper Soup

This recipe takes a bit of time, especially because of the chopping in the prep work, so I don't recommend it for a busy night!

Preheat the broiler in your oven. Cut two red bell peppers in half, and discard the seeds and membranes. Lay on a baking sheet covered in aluminum foil, skin sides up, and press flat with the palm of your hand. Broil for 15 minutes until the skins are blackened. Immediately put in zip-lock plastic bags and let stand 10 minutes, then carefully peel the skins away (don't burn your fingers!) and coarsely chop the peppers. Set aside.

Heat two teaspoons olive oil over medium-high heat in a large saucepan. Add one and a half cups chopped onion, 1/4 cup chopped shallot and two minced garlic cloves. Saute three minutes. Add 1/2 cup chopped carrot and 1/2 cup chopped celery and saute an additional two minutes.

Add in the chopped bell peppers, 1 tablespoon tomato paste, 1 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning (a blend of primarily celery salt, dry mustard, and a few extras like cinnamon: but I checked to make sure and yes, it's vegan), 1/4 tsp salt, a dash of black pepper, 1/4 hot sauce, and 28 oz of vegetable broth. The hot sauce I use, just FYI, is from Whole Foods' 365 Organic house brand. Bring the mixture to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer for fifteen minutes.

Remove from heat and let stand 5 minutes.

Pour half of the mixture into a blender and puree until smooth. Pour into a large bowl. Repeat with the remaining half of the mixture.

Ladle 1 1/2 cups soup into each of three bowls. Top each serving with two teaspoons of vegan sour cream and two teaspoons chopped chives. The "sour cream" from Tofutti is so delicious you'd never know it wasn't the real thing. I highly recommend it, not just for this recipe, but any wide variety of sour cream uses! http://www.tofutti.com/ss-hydro.shtml

Each bowl of soup has 140 calories.

Cost:
red bell pepper $2.69
onion $0.68
shallots $0.56
tomato paste $0.79
Old Bay seasoning $2.79
broth $3.79
chives $2.49