Tomato and Capsicum Soup

With an overflow of tomatoes and capsicums in my kitchen at the moment, this Tomato and Capsicum Soup recipe came across my path at just the right time. Another great reason to make it is that tomato soup is one that the kids will happily eat up and empty the bowl.

Of course the best part about soup is dipping the bread in and this time I served homemade garlic bread. It was a great complement but of course you could serve any style of bread you choose. The warmer, crustier and buttery it is the better.

Tomato and Capsicum Soup

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 brown onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 medium red capsicum, finely chopped

1 (250g) medium potato, peeled, chopped

4 (500g) tomatoes, chopped

2 tablespoons tomato paste

4 cups chicken stock

Method

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook onion, garlic and capsicum until soft (about 5 minutes), stirring occasionally.

Add potato, tomatoes and tomato paste and cook for 5 minutes or until tomatoes have softened. Add stock and cover. Bring to the boil then reduce heat to a simmer for 15 minutes or until potato is tender.

Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes before blending until smooth. Reheat gently if required. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

Recipe from Super Food Ideas, June 2010

The Klutzy Cook Notes

It is important to let the soup cool before blending for two reasons. Firstly, if it splashes on you it won’t be as hot (trust me on this one). Secondly, your machinery will definitely prefer to handle a cooler mix. Hand blenders in particular don’t like being immersed in hot liquid and can overheat very quickly.
To blend the soup either you can use either a hand or stand blender. The convenience of the hand blender is that the mixture can be left in the saucepan and blended all at once. For a stand blender, simply transfer the soup in batches and recombine before serving.