Last Sunday, we had a bonus day at home between our holiday at Tyaughton Lake and going back to work. After being outside for the previous few days, it seemed like a good day to hibernate at home. And what better food for hibernating than hearty minestrone soup? Rebar's minestrone is a little variation on the original - more "southwestern flavour". Sounded great.
When I started cooking though, things didn't smell so great. The problem came when I added in the two Jalepeno peppers called for by the recipe. Now I'm pretty tentative with chiles. Not so much because I don't like hot food - I quite like it - but because Simone can't stand it. So before adding the chiles to the pan, I tasted them - both the flesh and the seeds. I chewed them, touched them to my tongue, etc. All seemed good. I figured that if I could plop them straight into my mouth, then they'd hardly be noticed in a big pot of soup. How wrong I was. When they went into the pan, the air in our house filled with chili flavoured tear gas. Simone, who was on the phone with home at the time, broke into a choking fit for half an hour. I even had to stir the soup from outside on the back porch for a while. I thought that perhaps these chiles might be special airborne chiles, which release all their flavour into the air, but don't spice the food too much. I was wrong. The soup ended up tasting substantially of jalepenos. And unfortunately, it made about 6 litres of soup. Since Simone's is understandably reluctant to venture too close, that leaves me with about two and a half weeks worth of work lunches. I'm slowly working my way through.
Despite the heat, however, the soup is really good. Highly recommended winter weekend soup. Just go easy on the chiles.
Thanks for the word to the wise - I will steer clear of the peppers if I make that one!
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