A Sunday of A'Cookin' an' A'Cleanin'

Remember when Sunday was allegedly a day of rest? Don't think that's ever been the case at Chez Boeckman-Walker. This Sunday was no exception.

Soup's On!
After more than a week of trying to find time to make it, I finally had the opportunity to make a red pepper soup from Cooking Light I found two or three weeks ago. While I was trying and failing to find time to make the soup, half the eight red bell peppers that I'd bought last week froze and then thawed, which is not a great thing for bell peppers. The nonperishable ingredients took up valuable counter real estate for several days; they greeted me accusingly every morning when I reached into the spice/drug cabinet for my morning meds. Don't laugh, Gentle Reader: Olive oil has a wicked, wicked stare that you don't want to encounter at 5:50 in the morning.

I started working up the recipe Saturday afternoon and encountered one problem: the recipe, like many others I have, failed to explain why I needed to take a certain step. In this situation, the recipe called to broil the halved bell peppers for 15 minutes or until they were blackened. No explanation was given for this step. Not being a fan of blackened anything, I let the peppers broil for the 15 minutes and only half a dozen of them got blackened.

This mistake would cost me.

Gentle Reader, have you ever peeled a tomato? How about a red bell pepper? How about a chile? "No," you say? Well, count your blessings because peeling red bell peppers sucks. As I learned (and so did the husband), the point of blackening the peppers in the broiler was to make peeling them a frickin' walk in the park. The skins of the blackened peppers puffed up and peeled off like they were wearing an exfoliating peel-away mask. The peppers that didn't get blackened? Well, you know how sometimes you get price tags or other product stickers that refuse to peel off no matter what you try? Yeah, peeling those unblackened peppers was a lot like that.

The experience of peeling those damned pepper halves was so frustrating that after they were peeled and chopped (with the husband's help), I wrapped up production and said I'd finish Sunday morning.

In the Bag
Another learning experience this recipe presented was making a steeping bag. I'm not a tea drinker (I've even stopped drinking the yogi tea YoYo serves after classes), so steeping bags and all that stuff is a novel experience pour moi. For the soup's steeping bag, I needed cheesecloth, which I figured I could procure at Wally World easily enough.

Heh. Procure it I could at Wally World. Easily enough? Hell no. I hunted for it for a good half-hour until tracking it down in the paint department (which was on my mental list of possibilities, after the kitchenware aisle and various places in the food section). Even the guy who is sort of in charge of the kitchenware aisle during the day figured it had to be in his area somewhere. Oh well, so much for common sense in where to place items!

I also had to procure fresh thyme stems. Probably not a big thing for foodies, but it was a big thing for The Faudie. I'm not a big fan of basil and those other garden herbs, such as basil, majoram, chervil, dill, etc. I think of them as the kind of flavors WASPs like, and I'm not one for WASP food. Yes, I realize my sweeping condemnation of a variety of garden herbs is ridiculous, but, hey, who cares. I like the spices I like. So there.

Anywho, once I had my goodies in my makeshift steeping bag, I realized I'd cut the cheesecloth too short to properly tie it, so I had to resort to some thread from the sewing basket. It didn't make for the prettiest steeping bag ever, but that's not the point of it. It just had to hold the spices.

And it did. But my steeping bag sure as hell didn't look very pretty coming out after its job was done.

Souptastic Sunday Morning
With the prep work wrapped Saturday evening, making the soup itself Sunday morning after breakfast was pretty easy. As you probably saw in the preceding photos, Gentle Reader, Clive the Dutchie got to come out and play, and he did a great job, as always. I also got to play with the blender, even daring to use it without the pitcher lid's center piece in place so that steam could escape. Okay, granted, the recipe's instructions told me to do this and told me to place a towel over the hole so I wouldn't make a mess--but still, doing it was pretty daring.

(Yes, I know. If that's my sense of daring, I must live the most boring existence ever. And I do.)

Roasted Red Pepper Soup8 red bell peppers (about 2 3/4 lb.)
5 black peppercorns
3 thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
2 t olive oil
2 C diced onion (about 1 large)
1 T minced fresh garlic
4 C fat-free, low-Na chicken broth
3 T white wine vinegar
1/4 t hot pepper sauce
1/2 t NaCl
1/4 t ground black pepper
2 T chopped fresh chives

Prep the Peppers

1. Cut the bell peppers in half lengthwise; discard their seeds and membranes.
   
2. Place pepper halves, skin sides up, on a foil-lined baking sheet. Flatten with your hand.
   
3. Broil the peppers for 15 minutes or until blackened.
   
4. Place the peppers in a zip-top plastic bag and seal it. Let the peppers rest for 15 minutes.
   
5. Peel and chop the peppers.

Bag It

1. Place peppercorns, thyme and bay leaf on a double layer of cheesecloth.
2. Gather the edges of the cheesecloth together and tie them securely.

Soup Time

1. Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat.
   
2. Add onion and garlic, and cook them, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes or until the onion is lightly browned.
   
3. Add the bell peppers, cheesecloth bag, broth, vinegar and hot pepper sauce to the pan.
   
4. Increase the heat to medium-high, and bring the soup to a boil. Then cover, reduce the heat and let simmer 20 minutes.
   
5. Remove the soup from the heat, then fish out and trash the cheesecloth bag.
   
6. Stir in the NaCl and black pepper.
   
7. Place half of the soup in a blender. Remove the center piece of the blender lid to allow steam to escape before securing the blender lid on the blender. Place a clean towel over the opening in the blender lid to prevent splatters. Blend the soup until smooth. Pour the pureed mixture into a large bowl, then repeat this step with the remaining soup.
   
8. Sprinkle the finished soup with the chives.

Serving size: 1 C of soup and 1 t of chives

Nutritional Info
Calories: 99
Fat: 2.4 g
Saturated fat: 0.4 g
Protein: 3.7 g
Fiber: 1.4 g
Carbs: 16.7 g
Na: 465 mg

And now for what you've all been waiting for--The Faudie's Futzings!

• Screw freshly minced garlic. Get a jar of Spice World minced garlic. Save time.
  
• I didn't have white wine vinegar, and I didn't want to buy a bottle for a recipe I'd never tasted before. Yeah, I'm cheap. So I substituted red wine vinegar after checking out substitutes with The Cook's Thesaurus. I could have also used the rice wine vinegar I have but opted for the red wine vinegar.
  
• I didn't have hot pepper sauce either, and, since I'm cheap, I didn't want to buy it. So again, I check with a The Cook's Thesaurus and used 1/4 t of cayenne.
  
• Screw freshly ground black pepper. My cabinets are too full for a pepper mill. I whipped out 1/4 t of ground black pepper from a tin I've had since I got my first apartment back in August 1995.
  
• I was too lazy to chop up some greens from the green onions we have, so I used some leftover chopped cilantro instead. I thought it complemented the red bell pepper perfectly.

Bon appetit!

Double Your Pleasure
While making the soup this morning, I had planned to make up at least two more recipes--Ooey Gooey Peanut Butter Brownies and Zucchini-Orange Bread. And clean the house on top of that. And get ready to teach my nooner.

Yeah, sometimes my ambition is a wee bit out of wack.

Because I was already working up a new recipe, I opted to make up the brownies, which I've made twice before. However, this time I actually followed the recipe. Instead of using a Krusteaz fat-free brownie mix for the base, I used a devil's food cake mix, and for the first time, I didn't have problems with the brownie base not baking in the center.

No, the center sunk when I made the mistake of letting it cool too long, which happened because I'd failed to have the goo ready by the time the base was ready, which happened because I was busy with the soup.

Despite the sunken center, the brownies cooked in the time called for by the recipe, which is a first. Usually I have to bake them damn near double the time called for, in part because the Krusteaz brownies can be temperamental when made for a more cake-like consistency and also because our stove is frickin' ancient.

Am I making you hungry yet, Gentle Reader?

What about now?

They're damn good brownies, so go make some! Here's the recipe.

Ooey-Gooey Peanut Butter-Chocolate Brownies3/4 C fat-free sweetened condensed milk, divided
1/4 C butter, melted and cooled
1/4 C skim milk
1 18.25-oz. package devil's food cake mix
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
Cooking spray
1 7-oz. jar marshmallow creme (about 1 3/4 C)
1/2 C peanut butter morsels

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
   
2. In a large bowl, combine 1/4 C condensed milk, butter, milk, cake mix and egg white. The batter will be very stiff.
   
3. Coat the bottom of .
   
4. Using floured hands, press two-thirds of the batter into a 13" x 9" baking pan prepped with cooking spray. Pat the batter to even it out into a thin layer.
   
5. Bake the base for 10 minutes.
   
6. In a medium-size bowl, combine 1/2 C condensed milk and marshmallow creme, then stir in the morsels.
   
7. Spread the marshmallow goo evenly over the baked brownie layer.
   
8. Carefully drop the remaining batter by the spoonful atop the marshmallow goo.
9. Bake for 30 minutes.
   
10. Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack.

Serving size: 1 brownie

Nutritional Info
Calories: 176
Fat: 5 g
Saturated fat: 2.1 g
Protein: 2.6 g
Fiber: 0.8 g
Carbs: 29.9 g
Cholesterol: 6 mg
Na: 212 mg