Souperbowl Sunshine Soup
I found out who was playing in the Super Bowl this year because the woman threading my eyebrows told me she thought Cardi B’s boyfriend was in it. I googled “cardi b boyfriend” and found out he plays for the Patriots, which gave me 50% of the information needed to be conversant on the topic. I’m uh, not a big sports person.
I do love eating out of a crockpot with my friends, though, so about six weeks ago I pitched the idea of Souperbowl Sunday: a daytime gathering in which everyone would come over to my house with a soup they made, we would taste them all, and then we’d each leave with a quart container of everyone else’s soup. I think everyone was specious but we’ve been trapped in our houses for weeks due to inclement weather, so they played along. Before she left, one of our number said it was “the best party [she] had ever been to.” I will be riding that high for a long time.
It could be yellow-er, I admit that, but it’s a nice bowl of soup.
Though I’m from Louisville, but I was gone for a really long time and virtually zero of my childhood friends live here anymore, so building a roster (sorry, I’m going to keep doing as many football words as I know) of fun, cool, dependable regulars has been both challenging and pretty humbling. I’ve been back a few years now, but I’m only just starting to feel like I have a little group again. For a city where everyone likes to ask you where you went to high school as soon as they know your name, it’s a little unusual that most of my new circle are people who came here as adults without much connection to the place. I think that’s what’s made it easier to integrate; I don’t feel like I missed out on a million years of history with everyone like I would if I tried to re-establish my high school relationships, plus I relish each opportunity to give people a recommendation for a place to get pelmini, a good OB-GYN, or a convenient-but-clean gym. It felt really nice to eat soup with a bunch of people who like me, secure in the knowledge that they, too, would invite me to eat soup.
So anyway, all these out-out-towners came to my house with Dutch ovens and crockpots for two hours this afternoon ahead of the Super Bowl [sic]. The lineup was Tuscan bean, rustic potato, tom yum, French onion, “hangover” soup, chicken noodle, and sunshine soup. I will admit this was a last minute addition; I realized I didn’t have anything vegan, gluten-free, etc., and I wanted to make sure everyone could eat and no one would leave empty-ladled.
I am, by nature, a joyful hostess, but every single time I’ve invited people over, I have two thoughts in the last quarter of an hour before it begins:
What if no one comes?
I did not make enough food.
This was no exception, so I frantically paged through a cookbook for something I knew would be both delicious and made entirely from things in my vegetable crisper, freezer, and pantry.
Sunshine Soup is a 20 minute deal start to finish and I’d be surprised if you didn’t have most of the stuff you need in your house at this very moment. I tweaked it a little bit to make it work given my constraints, but I think it’ll become a lunchtime regular. This would be great with a little side salad or some warm bread or both. I’ll note that the original turned out a little more YELLOW than mine did; I’ll chalk that up to roasting my peppers a little bit longer. If that color is very important to you, roast them for a slightly shorter period.
I have no reflections on life to offer today, only that it felt nice to have a house full of people and soups.
Souperbowl Sunshine Soup
adapted from Nigella Kitchen
makes about two quarts
Ingredients
1 yellow bell pepper
1 orange bell pepper (or yellow if orange isn’t around)
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 quart/1 liter vegetable stock
3 1/2 cups/500g frozen corn
To Do:
Preheat your oven to 450F/250C and prepare a rimmed baking sheet with a length of parchment paper. Cut the tops off the peppers and remove the seeds. Tear them into pieces, then toss with olive oil and garlic powder. Spread them into a single layer and put them in the oven for 20 minutes.
While that’s cooking, bring your stock to a boil in a medium-sized pot. Add the corn kernels (it’s fine if they’re still frozen) and let that boil for about 20 minutes. Conveniently, these first two steps take the exact same amount of time.
Remove about a cup of the corn and put it aside.
Put the roasted peppers into the corn/stock potion and use an immersion blender to make it nice and smooth. Dump the reserved corn back in.
Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.