Quinoa Peanut Soup

Happy New Year!  Yes, I know it's January 10th, also known as Snowpocalypse in the great city of Atlanta thanks to 6 inches of snow coated with a tenth of an inch (and increasing) of ice.  Needless to say, I'm home, enjoying my first snow day in at least 7 years and futilely trying to convince Brian that sledding is lame and I will not do it. I'd much rather sit around and drink some salted caramel hot chocolate and share this delicious recipe for Quinoa Peanut Soup with all 10 of my readers. In full disclosure, I found this recipe on the delightful Fork, Fingers, Chopsticks and adapted it for my own taste.

For this tasty treat, you'll need: 3/4 cup quinoa, 2 stalks of celery, 1 medium onion, 2 sweet potatoes, 2 jalapeno peppers, 1 green bell pepper, 3 cloves of garlic, 2 zucchinis, 3 roasted red peppers, chili flake, oregano and cumin to taste, 4 cups of stock, 4 cups of water, and 1 cup of peanut butter.

 

First, rinse and drain the quinoa.  You may be wondering what in the hell quinoa is. Well, it's a tasty little grain-like seed with fantastic nutritional value. The one thing to remember when cooking with quinoa is that you must, must, must rinse and drain it prior to use to remove the seed's natural coating. I used a fine mesh sieve for this step and set the sieve aside to drain.  If you can't find or don't want to be bothered with quinoa, I suggest using barley, orzo or Israel cous cous instead.

Next, dice the celery, onion, green bell pepper, sweet potato and mince the jalapeno.  I peeled the potatoes as well, and diced everything up so that they were all roughly the same size.  Side note, I've taken to watching The Food Network's Worst Cook in America show because it's a little like watching a train wreck. Last night's lesson was all about mise en place and dicing vegetables in identically shaped pieces. Both techniques were like rocket science to the contestants on the show. I was dumbfounded.  

Now for the rest of the veggies, mince the garlic and dice the zucchini and roasted red peppers.  If you prefer fresh red peppers, feel free to leave the roasted ones out and add a fresh one. I tend to stay away from red peppers unless it's summer time since they're always like $4.99 a pound in non-Summer months and that's absurd.

After about 30 minutes of chopping, it's cook time. I elected to use my cast iron dutch oven for this baby.  I heated it over medium heat and added a bit of olive oil. Then went in the celery-onion-peppers-potatoes and about a teaspoon of red chili flake.  Cook for about 15 minutes until the potatoes are softened.  If you're using a cast iron cooking vessel, you'll want to stir this pretty frequently since things have a tendency to stick.

Next, goes in the garlic-zucchini-peppers.  Also, throw in about a teaspoon of dried oregano and tablespoon of cumin.  A bit of salt and pepper wouldn't hurt either.  Stir all this up and cook for another 2-4 minutes.

 

Now, the stock of your choosing.  First, add only about a cup and scrape the bottom of the pot with your spoon to release any tasty bits stuck to the bottom.  Then, dump in the remaining 3 cups.

Also, add an additional 3-4 cups of water.  Alternatively, you could only use water or only use stock. You do want your total liquid volume to be around 8 cups.

Finally, add the quinoa. Increase the heat to bring the soup to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer.  Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes until the quinoa is cooked.

When the 15 minute simmer time is up, give the broth a taste. Mine was nicely spicy on account of the two jalapenos. I was quite pleased since the soup had the potential to be bland as it was just vegetables.  However, it wasn't finished just yet.  Measure out a cup of peanut butter.  Then ladle out about a cup and half of the soup broth.  Using a whisk, fork, blender or whatever you'd like, mix the peanut butter and liquid until smooth, then add it back to the soup.  Stir to mix and cook for another 5-10 minutes.

 

This soup turned out a little thinner than the soups I usually make, but it was very, very tasty. Tasty enough that I'm pretty sure I'm going to make this for a soup swap a friend and I decided to hold later this month. Enjoy!