Provencale Roasted Red Pepper Soup

French Entree

PROVENÇALE ROASTED RED PEPPER SOUP

INGREDIENTS

2 red bell peppers
2 cloves garlic
1 onion
1/2 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons herbes de Provence
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon mignonette pepper (or pepper)
1/2 cup white wine
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup sour cream

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Bake bell peppers in baking dish at 450 degrees. Turn every 8 minutes until skin blackens on all sides. Remove bell peppers and put in a paper lunch bag. Close lunch bag and let bell peppers sweat for an hour.. Do not, do not, for the love of God, Montressor, take them out early.

If you take the red bell peppers out of the bag early, you will find it so difficult to remove the skin from the bell peppers. If you take the bell peppers out early, you find the horrible memory of vainly trying to remove the peppers’ skin so seared into your mind that you will need to join the French Foreign Legion to forget. Keep those bell peppers in the bag for the entire hour. Don’t let them out even if they ask.

While the bell peppers are steaming in the sack, mince garlic cloves and onion. Put garlic, olive oil, onion, herbes de Provence, salt, pepper, white wine, broth, and sour cream. Cook on low-medium heat for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

TIDBITS

1) “Soup” is an anagram for “Opus.”

2) Opus was the name of the penguin in the comic strip “Bloom County.”

3) I don’t recall if Opus ever ate toast.

4) My father and mother in the early days of their marriage used to go to Toastmasters. Toastmasters, at least then, was a great place to master public speaking.

5) My father spoke on the Emperor Penguin. At one point he said this penguin could jump sixty feet up into air. He meant to say sixty inches. This claim immediately got the attention of his wife, who had been suffering through other people’s speeches. She looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the mistake. Nope. They were all suffering spouses or people concentrating intently of their own upcoming speeches.

6) My mother let this mistake go. My father and mother were married for nearly sixty years.

7) Which is the height in inches an Emperor Penguin can jump. I find both feats rather impressive.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.