A Really Good Soup Recipe (dedicated to cyclingphun)

Tasty Red Soup

Recently, cyclingphun (an unblushing admirer of my muesli recipe) asked whether healthy eating had to be so expensive. My answer was no, if you bought produce in season and made a lot of soup. The response to that was to ask for some recipes. Here is one of my favourites, which is cheap, healthy, incredibly easy to make, colourful and quite delicious. Serve it with garlic bread, if you like.


Bell Pepper and Chili Soup
preparation time: 10 minutes
cooking time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:
8 oz/225 g red bell peppers, seeded and sliced
1 onion, sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 green chili, chopped
1 ½ cups of crushed tomatoes (canned ones are fine, just go with the low-sodium version)
2 ½ cups of vegetable stock (I make mine from cubes from the health food store, again low-sodium)
2 tbsp chopped basil
basil sprigs to garnish

Directions:
Put the bell peppers in a large pan with the onion, garlic and chili. Add the tomatoes and stock and bring to a boil, stirring well.

Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes, until the peppers have softened.

Take the soup from the pot and process in a food processor or blender until smooth. Return to a clean pot, add basil and cook until hot again. Garnish the soup with fresh basil sprigs and serve immediately.

Serves 4

Nutritional Information:
per serving

Calories: 55
Protein: 2 g
Carbohydrate: 11 g
Sugars: 10 g
Fat: 0.5 g

Additional comments:
I keep a jar of pickled jalapeño chilis in the refrigerator at all times. To do this, take a Mason or similar glass jar, fill it with fresh jalapeños that have been washed and slit along the sides and then top the jar up with Japanese rice vinegar. That’s all there is to it.

The soup freezes very well, so you can make a big batch and thaw it as needed.