OMGSNAX!

ever since i made Moosewood’s totally sick Sweet Pepper Soup (sour cream? dill? what were they thinking??), i’ve been questing for a good bell pepper soup recipe that matches the taste i have in my mind — sweet, yes, & creamy, too, but also spicy. i browsed epicurious & allrecipes at work & finally came up with something that seemed promising, so i gave it a try today:

INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 pounds red bell peppers
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup chopped shallots
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
3 cups (or more) vegetable broth
1/2 cup half & half
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1/8 teaspoons cayenne pepper
sliced fresh basil
salt & ground black pepper to taste

METHOD
char peppers over gas flame or in broiler until blackened on all sides. enclose in paper bag & let stand 10 minutes. peel, seed, & slice peppers. heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. add shallots, garlic, & thyme & sauté 3 minutes. add 3 cups broth & all but 4 slices of roasted pepper. simmer uncovered until peppers are very soft (about 20 minutes). working in batches, purée soup in blender until smooth. return to same pot. add half & half, vinegar, & cayenne pepper. rewarm soup, thinning with additional broth if desired. season to taste with salt & pepper. ladle soup into bowls. garnish with reserved pepper strips & basil.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
ok, (a)? i have an electric oven. so i almost skipped this whole “charring peppers” thing till i decided to google roasting peppers in an electric oven & realized that it wasn’t anything special. i basically washed the peppers, drizzled them with olive oil, & stuck them in a 9×13 baking pan on the top rack of the oven (set at broil so that the top coil would come on) for 20 minutes, turning them once.

peppers broiling

semi-charred pepper

they charred just fine, for the most part, although the oil spattered & i probably would’ve set off my smoke detector if it actually worked, which i’m kind of thinking it doesn’t. anyway, after 20 minutes of broiling, i dropped the peppers in a paper grocery bag & folded it over & let it stand the recommended 10 minutes, i guess so that the peppers could steam or something. it was pretty effective.

while the peppers were in the oven, i chopped the shallots.

shallots

having never seen shallots before, this was quite an adventure. basically, they look like giant cloves of garlic but smell (& act) like onions. not sure what the taste difference is, but they were definitely strong enough to make me cry. (which, ps, i learned by watching “unwrapped” on the food network a few months ago is due to inhaling the fumes & NOT from it actually bothering your eyes.)

peeling the peppers was kind of tricky at first, but i think that if the peppers had been charred more evenly, it would’ve been easier. i did burn my fingers innumerable times, but i guess that’s just one of the hazards of the job, right?

peeling the peppers; real steam!

sliced roasted peppers

soups are usually pretty easy for me (apart from the disgusting Moosewood bell pepper soup of doom) & this one was no exception. i doubt i’ll make it again — it’s not BAD but it really didn’t have the kick to it that i was hoping for (i’m thinking that i need to find a recipe that has tomatoes in it, too) — but i WILL use my newfound pepper-roasting technique for other purposes. way easier than i’d initially thought it’d be.

the finished soup — i didn’t bother with garnish since it’s just me

due to bad timing, i ended up eating by myself, which is always depressing, but since i wasn’t totally wowed by the soup, i guess that was probably for the best. ok, till next time, hearts & flowers & rainbows & unicorns!

 

 

“Cream of Red Bell Pepper Soup” from Bon Appétit (May 1999) off www.epicurious.com

my friend joyce got me a Moosewood cookbook maybe four years ago & i’ve poked around it from time to time, alternately dog-earring pages & wrinkling my nose depending on the recipe & whether it involved ew beans (which i’ve since learned to like) ew eggplant (which i’ve since learned to tolerate) ew mushrooms (which i’ve since learned to ignore) ew peas (hell no) etc, but i’d never really made much from it till recently, when, to mixed reviews (two said YUCK, two YUM), i made the Sweet Peppers Soup.

this post is not about that.

this post is about what i made tonight: Sweet Potato Quesadillas.

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups finely chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 cups grated peeled sweet potato (about 3 potatoes)
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
generous pinch of cayenne
salt & ground black pepper to taste
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
8 tortillas
salsa
sour cream

METHOD
sauté the onions & garlic in the vegetable oil until the onions are translucent. add the grated sweet potatoes, oregano, chili powder, cumin, & cayenne & cook, covered, for about ten minutes, stirring fequently to prevent sticking. when the sweet potato is tender, add salt & pepper to taste & remove the filling from the heat. spread one-eighth of the filling & 2 tablespoons of the cheese on each tortilla. lightly oil a heavy skillet & warm on medium heat. fold the tortilla in half & cook it in the heated skillet on each side for 2 or 3 minutes, until the cheese is melted. serve with salsa & sour cream.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
so for starters, i don’t have a grater. i asked for one for chanukah but got a garlic press instead. (ironically, i didn’t press any fresh garlic for this recipe b/c i didn’t have any on hand, so i cheated & used the chopped kind from a jar.) i also don’t have a food processor, & so my first thought (well, the one after, “oh shit, GRATED?!??”) was that maybe i ought to try mashing the sweet potatoes — but then caroline suggested just using the vegetable peeler to pseudo-shred them, so that worked out fine. (especially b/c she volunteered to do that part.)

caroline “grating” the sweet potatoes

the finished sweet potatoes in a bowl from my favorite set

look up “professional” in the dictionary & you’ll find this photo

as for the measurements, i had probably two more servings of filling left over when i ran out of tortilla, & i had almost an entire sweet potato left over besides (after we measured out the 4 cups the recipe calls for). also, i don’t know about you, but i was all, “2 tablespoons of cheese? psssh!” & it was surprisingly a totally fine amount. in fact, i probably used a little less than that when all was said & done. i definitely didn’t measure out any kind of 1/8 of the filling, though. (hence the leftovers.)

the cooked filling

secondly, i totally forgot to add salt & pepper. but no one seemed to notice. & i definitely didn’t use any salsa or sour cream, b/c (a) sour cream is gross & (b) no one seemed to want the salsa, which was fine by me.

thirdly, i cooked the quesadillas themselves a little differently b/c i was having some kind of brain processing problem where i couldn’t flip between two pages & actually follow directions, but the end result was the same. i’m sure you can figure out how to heat a tortilla in a pan. not hard.

a raw quesadilla

all that being said, they were pretty ok. the chili powder totally overwhelmed the actual sweet potato taste (& also made it smell kind of like taco bell) which was kind of a bummer, but they tasted pretty good anyway. well, at least, daniel & ian joined caroline & i for dinner & no one complained, so i feel safe in assuming that that means something.

ian & daniel sit down at the table;
note the mexican prayer candles, my great-grandpa’s dishes,
& my grandparents’ fabulously retro amber glasses

we speculated that maybe it’d be a good idea to eliminate the chili powder (& cumin?) altogether & instead go for a different flavor, maybe involving cinnamon & more cayenne. daniel thought it might make a good desserty-type thing if the sweet potatoes were mashed with butter & brown sugar, & i think maybe that could involve cinnamon or vanilla ice cream, but that’s nothing more than conjecture at this point.

all in all, i’d make it again if i didn’t have to spend a million years grating potatoes^*.

caroline & ian wear oven mitts on their heads

b/c if i don’t make this face, it’s not a photo of me

 

 

“Sweet Potato Quesadillas” from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day by The Moosewood Collective, © 1994.

* if i didn’t have to make caroline spend a million years shredding potatoes.