A little Warmth on a Cold Winter Night

I looked at a bunch of recipes on the web trying to see what I might put in this soup. Some of them called for apple cider vinegar and brown sugar but when I thought about it, I wouldn’t put that in my pepper stuffing so why would I put that in the soup. The following is the recipe I came up with. I served it with a hunk of Italian bread.

Stuffed Pepper Soup

1 lb loose Italian sausage (hot or mild) *
1 med onion – diced
2-3 lrg cloves garlic – minced
3-4 ribs celery – diced (include any leaves – lots of flavor there)
3 lrg green peppers – diced
1-2 red peppers – diced
2 T tomato paste
1 can diced tomatoes (I like the no salt added)
2-3 C low-sodium tomato juice
3 C water
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp Herb d’Provence (can substitute Italian seasoning)
2 T + 1 tsp beef soup base
2 T Worchestire sauce
Red pepper flakes (to taste)
1 ½ C rice or quick cooking barley **

Put about 2 T olive oil in a soup pot or Dutch oven. Add onions and celery and sauté until soft about 4-5 mintues. Add garlic and sauté. When garlic becomes fragrant, add sausage and cook thoroughly. Add diced peppers and let them begin to cook through about 4-5 mintues. Add the rest of the ingredients except rice. Once veggies are cooked (or almost cooked) add the rice and cook through. If soup begins to get a little thick because of the rice, just add a little beef stock or water. Be sure to taste along the way to ensure your seasoning is where you want it.

*I use fresh sausage from a butcher so there is little oil, but if you can’t find loose Italian sausage, you can remove the sausage from the casing of your favorite grilling sausage. In this case, I would brown it first and remove the excess grease before cooking the onions.

** I used a whole grain rice mixture with brown rice, red rice, barley and rye. I did it for to make the soup a little healthier, not for a different flavor. If you use a mix like this, you can cook it ahead since the rice mixture will take about 45 minutes to cook.