Some Late Summer Soup Spice

One evening at the end of August, Judy and I decided we wanted to make a spicy Thai peanut soup. We hadn't seen each other in over a month, and a soup- making adventure was an ideal way to catch up, reconnect and also to fill our bellies. We found a recipe on allrecipes.com that turned out great and we made some minor revisions. As Judy mentioned, we try to make meat- free soups so instead of chicken broth we used vegetable bouillon. In a moment of brilliance, Judy suggested adding some rice vinegar. We also added more curry and red pepper than the recipe calls for to give it more of a kick. You'll just have to improvise a bit!

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3 stalks celery, minced
• 1 small onion, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons curry powder
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper
• 2 cubes of vegetable bouillon diluted in some water
• 1 (14 ounce) can coconut milk
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup chopped peanuts
• splash of rice vinegar
• 
  

Directions

Melt the butter in a large sauce pan over medium heat. Cook the celery and onion in the butter, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another 2 minutes. Stir in the flour, curry powder, and red pepper; cook and stir 1 minutes. Pour in the vegetable bouillon and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer 20 minutes, stirring frequently. Mix in the coconut milk and peanut butter and a splash of rice vinegar; continue to heat while stirring until completely heated through. Remove from heat.

We made some yummy, easy spring rolls to accompany the soup. We just lightly fried some ready- made egg roll skins (though next time we might bake them) and filled them burrito- style with a mixture of fresh chopped greens, carrots, soy sauce and rice vinegar. The soup actually also made a nice dipping sauce for the spring rolls. The soup was delish both hot and cold!