Warm soup belly

There's nothing like warm soup belly on a snowy winter day. Last night I made Red Bell Pepper Soup. I was hoping it would come out like my favorite Roasted Red Pepper Bisque from my waitressing days, but it wasn't quite there. It was a lot thinner than I was expecting but still very tasty.

Ingredients

• 2 red bell peppers
• 5 2/3 cup vegetable stock
• 1 bermuda onion, finely chopped (I couldn't find Bermuda onion at the grocery store, but read that sweet onion can be substituted)
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 3/4 cup peeled, seeded, and chopped cucumber
• scant 1 cup cauliflower florets
• 1 extra large egg yolk (I never buy extra large eggs, so I just used 2 large egg yolks. Seemed fine!)
• 6 tbsp heavy cream
• 3 tbsp dry sherry
• salt & pepper

1. Preheat the broiler. Put the bell peppers on a cookie sheet and broil, turning frequently, for 10 minutes, until blistered and charred. Remove with tongs, put them in a plastic bag and seal (or a bowl covered with plastic wrap). Let stand until cool enough to handle. Don't underestimate the "sweat stage". It will be harder to peel if you go in too quickly. Peel, halve, and seed them, then chop the flesh.

2. Meanwhile, pour the vegetable stock into a pan and bring to a boil. Add the bell peppers, onion, carrots, cucumber, and cauliflower and bring back to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.

3. Remove the pan from the heat and let cool slightly. Transfer the soup to a food processor, in batches if necessary, and process to a puree.

4. Return the soup to the pan. Beat together the egg yolk and cream in a bowl and stir into the soup, season with salt & pepper, and reheat gently, stirring occasionally; do not let the soup boil. Stir in the sherry, ladle into warmed bowls, and serve immediately.


Now, ever since I saw my friend Jen's latest blog post about making her own bagels, I have been dying to make them. And as you can see from the date on the post, that is about 2 days! I was a little intimidated because she put a lot of time into it! I found a shortcut recipe on another blog which uses a bread machine, which we fortunately have! They really weren't too hard at all! Some things I'll probably take into consideration next time -

• Take care when pinching the ends of the bagel together. My seals weren't the greatest and came totally apart at the boiling stage with 3 out of 8 of the bagels.
• I will not use my dutch oven for boiling next time. It takes way too long to boil the water and never really got to a rolling boil.
• The blog recipe says to let sit for 15 minutes before boiling. I read a lot of comments about leaving it to sit a little longer, so I let them sit for 30 minutes.
• I baked for about 25 minutes and they were just starting to brown. I'll probably give them a little more time to crisp up next time.

I made 4 plain and 4 sesame. I'm looking forward to trying others!

Here's our yummy lunch on a cold snowy day. Doesn't get much cozier, right?