Red Pepper Soup with a Cucumber Salsa

Thursday 1.30pm

Now I am not a great fan of pepper soup, I find it a bit bitter, but roast them till charred and the flavour is much better. Today I had a go at a roasted pepper soup. With only one and a half red peppers you're not going to get much but 3/4 of a pint is enough for two for lunch. ( or one piggy Peter ) Peppers are sliced up into chunks, mixed with some olive oil, a couple of garlic cloves, a bunch of thyme, and salt and pepper and then popped into a hot oven for half an hour or so until blackened at the edges. Meanwhile half a chopped onion was cooking slowly in oil in a pan - I wanted the sweetness of the onion without any burning. Peeling the peppers is slimily messy but it has to be done and I quite enjoy it now. They go in with the onions along with the squeezed out garlic cloves and the peppery orange oil from roasting, trying to keep back the thyme stems. A small potato, chopped, goes in for thickening, half a small red chilli for a bit of a kick and a pint of half strength vegetable stock as usual. Simmer till the potato is soft and liquidise till smooth, and season mine needed a little salt and finally a drop of cream. The colour is beautifull, orangy with some black specks from the bits of burnt pepper skin that sneaked in. And it tastes rather good the red peppers coming through mild and creamy. The chilli was a bit fiery though, hence the cream but when that didn't work I was left gazing idly into the fridge wondering . . . and there was a cool cucumber looking back at me. So a sort of salsa made with chopped cucumber, lemon juice and chopped mint leaves all mixed together. Now we are getting there, and you know although I don't really do "restaurant food" this is pretty damned close.

My bowl in the picture would have been more full but unfortunately Nicola got to the soup first with a bigger bowl ! Mind you she had been working all morning so her need was greater than mine.