Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup with Tapenade and Feta

What should I make first? Even in my sixth year of this soup thing, there are so many recipes left to try and so many flavors  to explore – it can be a little overwhelming. I just accidentally bought six new cookbooks (yoops) and the internet shows no signs of stopping in its relentless glorification of all things gastronomic, and neither of those facts is very helpful when it’s decision time in the produce section.

Luckily, I have a Logan. For weeks he’s been saying he wanted a roasted red pepper and roasted tomato soup, and I’m pretty sure it’s the first time he’s ever told me he wanted something. An opportunity to make the boyfie happy and I don’t have the (wholly self-imposed and nonsensical) pressure of choosing the first soup of the year? Sign me up.

Luckily part two: Logan has good taste. This was really quite satisfying, which is particularly hard for me to admit since I didn’t base the recipe on anything and usually that makes me extra critical. But no joke, y’all: this soup is spicy and savory and sweet and just all around pleasing. My mouth is watering a little typing about it, and after each bite I was totally stoked for the next bite, right down to the last bite.

In fact, it was so good that Logan pointed out that I had gotten some soup on my forehead while I was cooking (what a pro), and I was so into the soup that I just left it there as my personal badge of honor. JK I fully forgot it was there but let's just pretend it was intentional anyway.

According to me, the julienne red pepper provides nice textural interest and acts almost as a noodle in the soup. And according to Logan, “The red pepper kind of feels like eating worms but I love it.” How's that for a ringing endorsement?

 

Of course, you could just eat the soup without the toppings, you know, if you like life to be boring or whatever. In that case, I’d just recommend that you taste and season the soup often to ensure that it isn’t flat. The tapenade and feta add a healthy (or possibly unhealthy) dose of salt, so I was a bit stingy in my seasoning of the base here. You can also, of course, adjust the paprika and red pepper flakes down if you’re a wuss not into the whole spice thing.

The real heroes of this soup are so tiny you’d never guess it: the fresh thyme and the toasted walnuts in the tapenade. Every time I got a bite with either of those dudes, I stopped thinking about anything at all other than what was in my mouth. Distracting in a good way, like when you’re walking down the street in San Francisco and you’re like HOW IS EVERYONE SO BEAUTIFUL (not like when you’re walking down the street in Cincinnati and you can’t figure out if the person ahead of you is wearing flesh colored pants or no pants at all).

The walnuts were a last-minute inspiration, so they didn’t make it into the ingredients picture but still ended up being a key agent of delight. Which just goes to show you [insert very deep life lesson drawn from this scenario].

And: B-b-b-BONUS! That’s not the only life lesson I got from this soup. Maybe it’s because I just got back from a leadership retreat, but I’m feeling really metaphorical these days. While I was chopping the mirepoix I was reminded of a phrase taught to me by my boss during the summer I worked on an avocado farm making artisanal soaps (BAHAHAHAHA what a horrendous sentence): “Don’t iron the buttons.” I was being all careful with my rudimentary knife skills when I realized: I’m gonna blend the crap out of this soup so who cares if I have a perfect ¼” dice? NO ONE, that’s who. As long as my veg was cut roughly the same size for even cooking, it truly did not matter, and there was absolutely no reason to be so precious about it. Don’t iron the buttons: no one will even know. Relax, have a little more fun and the soup will actually taste better for it.

Wisdom dispensed; commence recipe!

Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup with Tapenade and Feta

Serves four and makes extra tapenade for you to throw on some crackers while watching the Super Bowl (so classy)

Note: This can easily be made vegetarian if you leave the anchovy out of the tapenade, and vegan if you leave off the feta, both of which are totally unnecessary but just things I had and thought I might as well use.

GET THIS STUFF

Olive oil

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 carrot, peeled and diced

1 stalk of celery, diced

1 tablespoon paprika

¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 lb. tomatoes, cut in half

4 red bell peppers

3 sprigs of thyme

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 28-oz can of whole peeled tomatoes

2 cups vegetable broth

For the tapenade:

1 1/2 cups of olives, pitted (I used a mix of castelvetrano and black olives)

1 anchovy fillet (optional if you’re anti-fish)
2 peperoncini, stems removed

1 teaspoon capers

1/3 cup walnuts, toasted

1 teaspoon thyme leaves

1 tablespoon chopped Italian parsley

1 teaspoon chopped basil

2 or 3 tablespoons of your best extra virgin olive oil

Feta cheese, crumbled

DO THIS WITH IT

Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Toss red peppers with a splash of olive oil and place them on a rimmed baking sheet. Toss the tomatoes with some olive oil and a good pinch of salt and pepper, along with the leaves from three sprigs of thyme, then add them to the baking sheet. Cook for about 45 minutes, rotating the peppers a few times.

Meanwhile, make your tapenade. Put all listed ingredients in a food processor and pulse it up until it’s nice and evenly minced. You should probably just go ahead and eat a spoonful of it now, because it’s important to taste as you go (and because it’s really stinking good and your soup isn’t going to be ready for a while yet).

Heat a splash of olive oil (about 1 tablespoon or a little less) over medium heat in your soup pot. Add onions and let them go for five minutes or so on their own, then add in the carrots and celery and season with a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook for about 10 minutes, until soft and starting to get a little bit of browning on them – you want a little caramelization for sweetness. Add in paprika and crushed red pepper, stir and allow it to cook for another minute.

When you remove the peppers and tomatoes from the oven, let them cool for a bit and then peel the peppers. If you’ve roasted them long enough, the skin should come off easily, but if you want to loosen the skin even more you can put them in a paper bag straight out of the oven and let them cool that way. Remove stems and seeds as well, and put the flesh of three of the peppers with your tomatoes. Cut the flesh of the remaining pepper into thin ribbons, about the width of linguine, and set them aside (they’ll go on top of the soup).

Dump the three roasted red peppers and the roasted tomatoes into your pot along with the canned tomatoes and their juice plus the two cups of vegetable broth. Bring to a boil, then simmer for half an hour. Carefully blend your soup with an immersion blender or in batches in a standard blender until very smooth.

To serve, ladle soup into bowls and then top with a big spoonful of tapenade, a little pile of red pepper ribbons, and a tablespoon or two of crumbled feta.