Cream of Red Pepper Soup

I am going to try to cook my way through Mollie Katzen's Still Life with Menu, my totally unoriginal idea inspired by Julie and Julia.

SO, to date, I have prepared the first three recipes.

The first was Cream of Red Pepper Soup, and this illustrates why I decided to do this project:

I would page through my 20+ cookbooks and seldom try a recipe. There was always something quite not right. Like, I don't like creamed soups, for instance, so I didn't expect to be impressed by this red pepper soup, but I was! It was colorful and tasty, flavored with garlic and cumin. I did have minor difficulties trying to roast the peppers in my very compromised oven in the Lake Michigan cottage. The peppers slid off the cookie sheet and nestled against the back wall of the oven. The oven itself is a hazard to work with, and the thermometer is totally off. But I sort of learned how to roast peppers. The soup was blended at the end and I could have strained it according to the author, but I liked the slight texture of the not-quite-totally-pureed peppers.

The second recipe was Praline-Butterscotch Bars...butter, brown sugar, pecans, etc. I messed up a bit with the order of ingredients, but it didn't matter. We ate these within 36 hours and I sent 6 home with Maria.

The third recipe in the first "Menu" was Spring Vegetable Salad. I loved this also. It had asparagus, snow peas, carrots, summer squash, new red potatoes, green beans, all steamed and mixed with oil, garlic, mayonnaise and herbs. I made one change. The recipe called for 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice to be added just before serving. I added only 1 teaspoon to each serving and mixed it just before I ate it. Except for Betony, who had a serving when she was here, I consumed the whole salad in 4 days. It would even be tasty with no lemon juice added, IMO.

The final recipe in the first group is a Fruited Grain Salad and tomorrow I need to go scout out raw wheat berries.