Saturday Night Dinner: Peanut & “Chicken” Soup

Saturday nights were usually reserved for our traditional beer and pizza night, but with our usual go-to pizza place changing up their recipe to something that barely resembles what we fell in love with we’re currently cooking dinner ourselves.  This recipe came from The Flat Belly Diet Cookbook, something I was glancing through while we were relaxing at Borders this afternoon.  From my quick read through, the book looked to have several interesting recipe ideas, even if the author was obsessed with repeating the word MUFA (monounsaturated fatty acids) as often as Rachel Ray needs to use EVOO, yummo, or sammi in every sentence.  Needless to say it got grating pretty quickly.  If you can look past that you can probably find some tasty recipes.  They’re not all vegetarian, but most are easily adaptable.

The original recipe didn’t call for the “chicken”, but we had some extra laying around and decided to toss it in for a little extra protein. The result is a simple, filling vegetable soup with a mild peanut taste; a great creamy recipe for the cold of winter.

Peanut & “Chicken” Soup

• 1 Tbsp Canola Oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 ribs celery, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3 cups vegetable broth, divided
• ½ cup creamy peanut butter
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice
• 12 oz vegetarian “chicken” strips, chopped
• 2 Tbsp chopped nuts (optional)

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.  Add the onion, celery, and carrots.  Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes or until the onion softens. Add the garlic and 2 cups of the broth.  Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until the vegetables are very tender.

Transfer the soup to a food processor fitted with a metal blade or a blender.  Process until smooth

Return the soup to the pot and stir in the peanut butter, lemon juice, and remaining 1 cup broth.  Cook for 5 minutes or until the peanut melts and flavors blend.  Add the “chicken” and continue to cook until heated through.

Ladle into 4 bowls and sprinkle with the chopped nuts.

4 servings (1 ¼ cup each.)