Baby it’s cold outside. Time to pack up some soup

Yes, soup for you! In looking at our Bring It repertoire one might think we never make soup. The fact is, especially this time of year I am something of a “Soup Nutsy,” cooking up soup and broth all the time and bossing it into as many family meals as possible. The problem is that I never use a recipe, which makes sharing the love problematic. I’ll work on that, as well as decent soup photos which apparently are no small feat.

In the meantime, I offer you this super excellent slightly spicy soup that can be made almost entirely out of non perishable pantry items, which allows you to plan ahead, stock up and whip it up in a pinch.

I discovered this while desperately searching for something vegan and gluten free to make for a friend recovering from surgery. The next time I made it was as a last minute punt for a moonlight winter hike. I threw it together in record time and chucked it in a Thermos. It was a huge hit.

The key is to resist any urge to use up the dirt cheap cattle feed grade frozen corn tucked away in your freezer and spring for the Birds Eye white and gold good stuff, or even the canned white shoepeg corn. Also, when I first made this I could not get to our super groovy coop for the Thai red curry paste so I used Tikki Masala curry paste in the International section. It’s milder so I used more and it was similarly excellent. And might I say, if gluten is your bag, baby, this goes excellently with Easiest French Bread Ever.

Ingredients

1 Tbsp light olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 to 5 scallions, white and green parts, thinly sliced
1 medium red bell pepper, cut into short, narrow strips
Two 15-ounce cans light coconut milk
1½ cups rice milk
One 16-ounce bag frozen corn
2 tsp good quality curry powder
1/4 tsp Thai red curry paste, more or less  to taste
1 tsp salt, or to taste
1/2 cup minced fresh cilantro

Method

Heat the oil in a small soup pot. Add the garlic, the white parts of the scallions, and the bell pepper. Sauté over medium-low heat  until softened and golden, about 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the coconut milk, rice milk, corn, curry powder, the green parts of the scallions. If using the curry paste, dissolve it in a small amount of water before adding to the soup.

Bring to a rapid simmer, then lower the heat. Cover and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Season with salt and remove from the heat.

Serve, passing around the cilantro for topping.

Yield: 6 servings.