This is a post for Sweetnicks ARF/5-A-Day Tuesdays. It is her encouragement to us out in the blogging world to get 5 fruits and veggies a day. An while you are at it, make your selections Antioxident Rich Foods.

I am very excited to have this as my first recipe posted in two months. It has been hard to be away. I have decided to turn over a cholesterol leaf and make a serious attempt to remove the majority of my animal proteins. That means more veggie based meals and more fish rather than beef or chicken.

My first step towards these goals is my Spicy Avocado Soup. This soup started off as a recipe in an “Everyday with Rachael Ray” magazine. I went shopping this morning for the ingredients and, to my surprise, there were no jalapeño peppers. They did carry Serrano peppers, so I grab one up for the soup. Arriving home, I did not think to check on the capsaicin involved with a Serrano pepper. I just made the soup, making personal adjustments along the way. Lessons were learned.

On Top Chef, when a contestant’s head is on the block, a lot of times they will ask them if they tasted their food before serving it. That usually means there was something wrong with it. Well I didn’t taste my soup until I ladled it into my bowl. OUCH! I maybe shouldn’t have added the additional heat because Serrano peppers are hotter than jalapeño peppers. Luckily, the heat was balanced out nicely by the sweet corn and black beans. The addition of a piece of toasted dutch crunch bread made it a beautiful meal.

Spicy Avocado Soup

The Ingredients

• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
• 1 Serrano pepper (jalapeño for the less adventurous), seeded
• 3 avocados, peeled and halved
• Grated peel of 1 lime and the juice of 3 limes
• 1/3 cup cilantro leave
• Salt and pepper
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 2 cups corn kernels (fresh, about 2 ears, or frozen)
• 2 cups black beans (dried prepared or strait from a can)
• 1 tsp New Mexico hot ground chile (or your other favorite ground chili)
• Hot sauce, just a dash or to your preference

The Steps

1. Place garlic and pepper in a food processor and finely chop. Add the avocados, lime peel, lime juice, cilantro and 1/2 cup of the black beans, season to taste with salt and pepper, ground chile and hot sauce. Process until just combined.
2. While food processor continues to run, add the vegetable broth a cup at a time. If soup is too think, add additional broth or water.
3. In a nonstick skillet, toast the corn kernels until lightly browned. Stir the corn kernels and remaining black beans into the soup.
4. Serve with a couple of cilantro leaves or corn kernels on top and a slice of bread on the side. Enjoy!

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 11:08 pm and is filed under Soup, Vegetables, Vegetarian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.