I’ve been reading food blogs (kind of obsessively) for a while now. I’ve stumbled across (and drooled over) posts from the Daring Bakers, the Tuesdays with Dorie people, and of course Dorie herself, oh and David too. I started reading them during my first sugar-free challenge as a way to vicariously satisfy my sweet tooth. Reading the descriptions of the foods and seeing all the beautiful pictures (see Tartelette) I felt like I was actually tasting all of the wonderful creations.

After a discussion of mojito cupcakes, my baking buddy cousin sent me this link with what she called the best looking recipe she’s found. The recipe sounds delicious (and is still on my list of things to make). So I decided to check out the rest of the blog. It turns out the author is one of the founders of the Daring Bakers, and she’s also come up with something called Magazine Mondays. Magazine Mondays were created as a way to go through all those magazine recipes we’ve got bookmarked but never actually get around to making. Every monday (well in theory every monday), you pick a recipe from the pile and tell the world about it.

I think it’s a great idea, and so I’m hoping on the bandwagon.

My first Magazine Monday Recipe is from the November 2007 issue of Martha Stewart Living. The switch from hot to kinda of coolish weather last week had me craving soup, so I made one of Martha’s.

Spicy Chickpea Tomato Soup

• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 tsp chilli powder
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cups chickpeas cooked (or 1 can)
• 1 1/2 cup canned crushed tomatoes, including the juice
• 1/2 cup drained jarred roasted peppers
• 3 1/2 cups chicken broth
• sour cream or yogurt for serving
• chives or parsley for garnish

Directions

1. In a food processor pulse garlic, chili, coriander and salt into a paste.
2. Heat oil in a medium-sized pot and add garlic paste. Cook until softened.
3. Add chickpeas, tomatoes, peppers and broth. Simmer for 15 minutes. Let cool slightly
4. Using an immersion blender puree soup.
5. Serve with a dollop of yogurt or sour cream and garnish with chives or parley.

I omitted the caraway seeds Martha calls for just because I don’t have any.

And I used chives from my “garden”.

They came back all by themselves this spring! (I took the picture at night to hide the horrible view from my balcony, I need to move!)

This is a very quick and easy soup. I actually found it tasted better the next day, the flavours seemed to have blended together a little more, probably because of the short cooking time. The peppers give the soup a little something extra, a very nice touch. The only issue I had was with the texture, maybe I didn’t puree it enough but I found the soup a little clumpy. I would definitely make this again.

Enjoy!