Peanut Butter Vegetable Soup

Who else is completely snowed in? We are thankful to have made it home safely from Christmas in NJ yesterday. My plan was to stay in NJ until this afternoon, but with the doomsday forecast, the husband and I decided to leave at 8 am yesterday to make sure we beat the storm. The traffic was mad, and we beat the storm by about 15 minutes. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the time to do our weekly grocery shopping. After days of eating cookies, meat, cheese, and consuming wine and beer, we also needed some vegetables, so I spent a few minutes browsing the refrigerator and got a little creative.

I started with an entire onion, sliced into rings and a habanero pepper, seeds removed, sliced into tiny pieces, and added to some extra virgin olive oil in a hot pot.

While those softened, I cut cauliflower and carrots into bite-sized pieces and dried out some kale that I had frozen last week.

I added those veggies to the olive oil to sauté for a few minutes. For the soup stock, I pulled out some frozen turkey stock made after Thanksgiving and thawed it quickly in the microwave. Having homemade stock in reserves is handy and delicious!

After I poured the stock in, I brought the veggies up to a boil for a few minutes, then lowered it to a simmer and added a can of rinsed black beans and a can of fire roasted tomatoes in adobo seasoning, given to me by my friend Megan.

All together now!

Everything simmered together while I did some kitchen cleanup, and then I served up the soup with a key ingredient, a spoonful of peanut butter! I was watching Top Chef: All Stars, and inspired by Carla’s spicy groundnut stew, I decided to use what I had to make my own version!

The spice, combined with the salty, peanutty peanut butter flavors made this dish a winner. The plethora of veggies was just what my body needed to refuel after eating so many indulgent treats.

Alongside the soup, we each had a piece of whole grain bread topped with Kerrygold Red Leicester cheddar cheese melted in the oven.

We also followed up with some Christmas cookies. It IS still the holiday season! Growing up, we considered it to be Christmas until the Epiphany, January 6, and I stand by that rule for celebrating to this day.

How was your weekend? If you celebrate Christmas did you receive any fun gifts or eat anything particularly delicious?