Blogging Ottinger (tim)

I’ve got another take on the soup. This time it is closer to my first batch. Simpler is better, most of the time.

2 Green Bell Peppers
5 Seranno peppers
1 Qt Chicken Broth
1 medium onion
1 pt heavy cream
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp garlic powder
Oil (I didn’t measure, but I doubt over 1/2 cup)
Flour (about one cup)
Cilantro (to taste)
Salt and Pepper to taste

I didn’t put extra liquid in as I did the last two times, and cut back on the ingredients. I really wasn’t too keen on using green bell peppers, wanting something more like a poblano or anaheim but apparently peppers have just started selling for USD$133.00 just like oil. We didn’t want to spend over four dollars per pepper, and the local store had only bell peppers at reasonable prices. That reminds me that I need to plant my pepper seeds. It may have been a lucky break, though, since this was a good batch.

Again, chop peppers and onion and sweat them in oil in a medium saucepan.

Add the garlic powder, then make a good, thick roux with the oil and flour. You want this to be thick like a gravy.

Let the roux brown a little, then pour in the broth while stirring. Bring it to a nice boil, reduce heat a bit and add the heavy cream and cilantro.

Let the flavors cook together in the pot for a few minutes, maybe ten or fifteen. Keep the heat down so you don’t scorch it, stir it now and then.

When the house smells really good, hit the thick soup with an immersion blender.

Finally, stir in the milk and add salt and pepper to taste.

This made enough for my family of four, and was not excessively spicy. Some of us got seconds. We used quite a few crackers, but it was yummy. Next time I want to try adding sour cream instead of heavy cream. I might go back to adding avocados again, because that was a nice touch, but this is probably the right starting point for any further experiments.

On Thursday night, the fan died on my P42p thinkpad. If I am a bit unresponsive in email, or don’t have information I should have, you know why. Hopefully we can get it resurrected, else I’m looking at maybe getting a new laptop.

The T42p has been my constant companion for about three years, and runs Ubuntu. I upgraded to Hardy Heron without a hitch. It is very snappy, and has a lot of tools and programming languages on it. Even though it would be underpowered (and the 80GB drive too small) for windows, it is quite pleasant as a Linux box. It tends to outperform my friends’ much more powerful Windows and Mac boxes, and the updates are much easier. I did have some trouble learning how to use it with different monitors, and of course my usual problems getting different IDEs all squared away, but it is a very fine box when the fan isn’t dead.