Red Pepper Chickpea Soup for Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays

Since I am headed to Oregon this coming week to visit my family, I wanted a quick, small-batch soup today that could be made from the pantry and so I picked this Red Pepper Chickpea Soup from Souping by Alison Velazquez, owner of Soupology. In the book it is tagged as a winter soup but I think it works well for any season.  

Souping says, "This vibrant soup brings together the flavors of roasted red bell peppers and nutty chickpeas in one creamy, satisfying bowl. Fire-roasted tomatoes add a savory, slightly smokey note."

Red Pepper Chickpea Soup 
Slightly Adapted from Souping by Alison Velazquez
(Makes about 4 cups) 

1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
1 sweet onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced  (I used 3 cloves)
1/2 cup canned fire-roasted diced tomatoes 
1 1/2 cups roasted red peppers, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained
4 cups purified water (I used homemade veggie broth)
2 Tbsp parsley, minced (I used dried parsley)
1/4 tsp salt, or to taste

Heat olive oil over medium heat in a medium, heavy-bottomed pot. When hot, add onion and garlic and cook about 5 minutes, until onion is translucent.

Add tomatoes, roasted red pepper, chickpeas and water and increase heat to bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, simmering for 10 to 15 minutes. 

Blend until smooth--using a blender or immersion blender. Add parsley and taste for seasoning, adding salt to taste. Serve hot.

Notes/Results: This is just a simple red pepper soup, made creamy by the beans and with good flavor. I ate it with crackers and topped it with some crispy garlic-black pepper fried onions but it would be great to dip a grilled cheese into it. I added and extra garlic cloves and used up some homemade veggie broth which added to the flavor. I forgot to get parsley so I just added dried parsley to the soup while it was cooking. Simple and good, I would make it again.

We have a couple of delicious dishes waiting this week in the Souper Sundays kitchen--let's have a look!

Melynda of Our Sunday Cafe shared blistered Green Bean Salad with Smoked Paprika Vinaigrette, Feta and Chopped Almonds and said, "When I made the Smoked Paprika Vinaigrette I knew it would take well to an assertive vegetable, to make a delicious knife and fork salad. I started thinking about flavor combinations that would marry well and the end result sould be simply delicious and based upon our leftovers, I think I found it!"

Here at Kahakai Kitchen I tried an unusual Alabama Gulf Coast classic, West Indies Salad, a simple preparation of lump crab meat, sweet onion,cider vinegar, cooking oil and ice water. It was surprisingly delicious scooped onto saltine crackers and with a glass of sweet tea and I imagine it would also be great on lettuce or greens or topping an avocado.

Mahalo to Melynda for joining me this week! 

Souper Sundays is back with a new format of a picture link each week where anyone interested can post their soups, salads, or sandwiches any time during the week and I post a recap of the entries the following week.)

(If you aren't familiar with Souper Sundays, you can read about of the origins of it here. 

If you would like to join in Souper (Soup, Salad, and Sammie) Sundays, I would love to have you! Here's how...

To join in this week's linkup with your soup, salad or sandwich:

• Link up your soup (stew, chili, soupy curries, etc. are fine), salad, or sandwich dish, (preferably one from the current week or month--but we'll take older posts too) on the picture link below and leave a comment on this post so I am sure not to miss you.

On your entry post (on your blog):

• please mention Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen and link back to this post.
• you are welcome to add the Souper Sundays logo to your post and/or blog (optional).

An InLinkz Link-up

Have a happy, healthy week!