A rather greedy guest comes for Dinner!

Well, this evening came as a suprise, the normally quiet and reserved Ted Bear dropped by when he heard Butter Chicken was on the Menu......

Roasted red pepper & Feta Cheese soup

Ingredients 

 3 - 4 red peppers

 100 g  full fat Feta cheese or half fat greek salad cheese
 1 small onion
 3-4 cloves of garlic

 1/2 tsp paprika

 olive oil
 tomatoes pomodorino (or similar mediterranean variety tomatoes or use tomato puree! )

 2 tablespoons of creme fraiche
 50ml  single cream (or double cream if you're feeling indulgent -go onnn!)

 A pinch of salt
 freshly grated black pepper

  Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees Celsius (or equiv. Gas mark 6-7)

Method

 After pre heating oven.

1. Wash the red peppers.

 2.    Cut lengthways in large chunky pieces, remove seeds, drizzle with olive oil and season with sea salt  and freshly grated pepper. The tomatoes, a few cloves of garlic can also be roasted with these.

Put in the oven and roast for 20- 40 mins depending on your oven until the edges start to get blackened and peppers get wrinkled.

                                                                                                                                                                                         

  

And Close up!

The one thing I cannot replicate online is the wonderful aroma that fills the kitchen when the peppers are roasting....

3. Next, slice onion finely and fry in small amount of olive oil (2-5 minutes), then add 3 cloves crushed garlic, continue to fry for further 2 minutes.

4. Add the roasted vegetables to the pan, you can remove any skin from the tomatoes beforehand if possible, and then add a little paprika, salt, stir for about a minute.

5. Add the stock 750ml stock to the pan. You can throw in a chopped carrot at these stage if you have any spare, I did! The beauty of making a soup is you can bung anything else in the pan, so everything gets used up.

                                               This is how it looks at this stage:

6. Let this cook on slow heat for at least 20 minutes, then crumble in the feta cheese, start with small amounts, maybe use 50g if you watching fat content etc and increase if you cannot taste it or you can get half fat greek salad cheese. The feta cheese can actually be put in at the next stage also after blending and you can gently let soup simmer.

7. Then use a blender and smoothen,you may wish to remove any tomato seeds by sieving, but I didn't bother! Add more water if too thick, check seasoning, add creme fraiche and/or cream to serve, and there you have it!

Love affair in Toronto!

It was December, cold, a few days before Christmas and we had ventured out bracing the cold Ontario weather, for a couple of minutes we headed out of the underground walkways out onto the main roads, it was beautiful but bitterly cold...

We were originally looking for the Keg Restaurant some 2 blocks away but just as we reached the end of one block we saw a similar looking restaurant called Caseys.

It's here I had the most warming and gorgeous tasting roasted red pepper and feta cheese soup! It was divine!

As soon as I got home, I vowed I try to replicate it..and I did in January and have just tried it again now. The flavours are intense and its the kind of soup which you'll love to savour every mouthful.

Recipe follow...Enjoy!