It’s almost winter and the best way to stay warm is to enjoy your own home-made soup. This is a thick, warm and spicy soup and as of today, my favourite. It is really good for you, full of vitamins and fiber and keeps for about a week.
This is my new go-to comfort food. The recipe calls for it to be blended, but if you don’t have a blender you can always leave it chunky. But it’s just way better blended.
What you’ll need – (serves 3-4 hungry people)
2 red peppers
2 TBS olive oil
2 large tomatoes,diced
1 can diced tomatoes
1 white onion,diced
2 garlic cloves,minced
1 tsp Salt
1tsp Pepper
1tsp Dried Thyme
1tsp Dried Oregano
1 tsp Chili flakes
1 TBS Cayenne pepper
2 cups Vegetable Stock
How to do it:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C
2. Rub a bit of olive oil on the red peppers, place on a baking tray and bake for about 15 minutes until to skins are blackened in parts.
3. When you take them out the oven put the straight into a Ziploc bag, or in a bowl covered with clingwrap.
4. After about 10 minutes, remove the peppers and slide the skin off. Then remove the seeds and roughly chop.
5. In a medium sized saucepan, heat 2 TBS of olive oil. Fry the onion and garlic until translucent.
6. Add the fresh tomatoes, the canned tomatoes, the chopped red peppers, the quinoa and the vegetable stock. Stir through.
7. Add the thyme, oregano, chili flakes and cayenne. Stir through. When the soup is boiling, reduce to a simmer, add the salt and pepper and cook uncovered for 25-30 minutes until the quinoa is cooked. (You’ll know it’s cooked when you see the little tails coming out of the quinoa.)
8. Using a stick blender, or a food processor, blend the soup until there are no big lumps of tomato.
9. Serve hot with fresh thyme and crusty bread.