CSA Week 13 - August 24th - red pepper soup

Another easy and delicious soup to follow last week's. This one has an uncanny creaminess that certainly can't just come from the scant amount of oil used to saute the veggies.

Red Pepper Soup 

Adapted and halved from here (who adapted it from the New York Times 9/21/05)

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp. cooking oil 
• 2 small-to-medium onions, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed and roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp. dry white wine
• 6 sweet red peppers, cut into 1-inch pieces.I used 3 larger 'Carmen' and 3 smaller 'Lipstick', I believe, stockpiled from the last three shares. 
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 tsp. dried thyme
• 1 cayenne pepper, minced (optional)
• Salt, pepper, and sugar
• Sour cream for garnish
• Harissa for garnish (optional - suggestion from an SK commenter) 

Directions

• Put oil in large pot and heat on medium. Add onion when oil is hot, along with a few pinches of salt and sugar. Cook onions until they begin to soften and take on color. Add garlic and peppers and cook another minute. Add wine, stock, thyme, and hot pepper. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and simmer until peppers are tender, about 30 minutes. In food processor, blender, or with an immersion blender (preferred), puree mixture until smooth. Adjust seasonings to taste.
• Serve with sour cream, crusty bread, and, optionally, harissa, which was delicious, but made it too spicy. I would suggest leaving out the cayenne if you want to use harissa.  

Makes 3-4 small servings.