* Corn, Three Pepper and Orzo Soup

Yes I know it's yet another bloody soup recipe. You really should be used to it by now.

My eating habits haven't changed much in forty years so they're hardly going to change in the single year that I have been food blogging... maybe if I'm still at it in twenty years you will be able to expect something different... but only because I will have cooked every, single soup recipe on the planet by then.

Or not.

Somehow I doubt that we're going to find out.

No. I really don't expect to be dead within the next twenty years. Well it's not in the plan, at any rate -I just doubt that in twenty years I'll still be food blogging. I'm hoping to be living on a Caribbean Island, in a hut, on the beach. Someone else will be doing the cooking.

I can dream.

Anyway... this soup is an adapted version of a creamless corn chowder by Cara at Big Girls Small Kitchen (Link to original recipe at bottom of page). I absolutely loved it when I cooked it, about a year ago (so did Neil), and was tempted just to repeat the recipe this time - it was that good... but I had extra peppers to use up and am still attempting to locate and divest myself of all of the pasta that I have accumulated and hidden throughout the house...

... I had my hands on a bag of mini farfalle in the supermarket the other day and for the first time ever my brain decided to get in on the action and question whether or not I actually needed another type of pasta in the house. We had a minor altercation. I lost. I came home without the mini farfalle.

I am no longer in a relationship with my brain.

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Corn, Three Pepper and Orzo Soup Recipe

Serves 4

Prep time - 10 minutes
Cooking time - 55 minutes
Total time - 1 hr 5 minutes

You will need
A medium to large saucepan/skillet with lid

Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion - diced
2 medium carrots - peeled and diced
3 corn cobs - sweetcorn removed and reserved, naked cobs reserved
1 pint 15fl oz/1 litre vegetable stock
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsps sherry
3 bay leaves
1/2 red pepper - deseeded and diced
1/2 orange pepper - deseeded and diced
1/2 green pepper - deseeded and diced
2oz/50g dried orzo
1 tsp dried tarragon

Method

• Heat oil in the pan and gently soften the onions for 3 - 4 minutes.
• Add the carrots and cook for a further 5 - 6 minutes.
• Pour in the vegetable stock and sherry and add the salt.
• Drop in the naked corn cobs and bay leaves - bring to a boil then drop to a gentle simmer. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
• Remove naked cobs (I know I could call them husks, but where's the fun in that?!?), and bay leaves.
• Add the peppers and orzo and continue to simmer for another 10 minutes.
• Stir in the sweetcorn and tarragon and cook for 2 minutes.
• Serve with crusty bread.

EAT

Lightly adapted from Big Girls Small Kitchen - New York Corn Chowder with Tarragon