Roasted Poblano and Jalapeno Cream Soup

Happy Cinco de Mayo!....a day late. Sorry, but I totally made this soup off the cuff last night, so posting it prior to actual Cinco de Mayo was not going to happen. Oh well, you'll surely still find a way to enjoy this one.

This soup is spicy and hearty, but is also relatively simple in flavor (lots of chili flavor), so it balances itself nicely. I like to serve this with just a big hunk of bread, but would also be good with tortilla chips, a little cotija and some avocado sliced into it as well. You could also stir in some rotisserie chicken for a heartier soup.

Ingredients:

2 Tbs butter 1 white onion, cut into 1 inch chunks 1 cup of carrots, cut into 1/2 inch slices or chunks 4 ribs of celery, roughly chopped 6 Poblano chili's, * roasted, charred skin removed and roughly chopped 2 Jalapeno's, seeded and diced 1/2 of a red bell pepper, finely chopped 3 cloves of garlic, smashed 4 Tbs flour 6 cups of Chicken stock 1/4 cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro 1 tsp cumin Salt to taste 3 cups of milk 1 Cup of heavy cream

Directions:

1. In a stock pot, melt the butter over med-high heat. As soon as it's melted, add your onion, carrot and celery and saute for 2 minutes.

2. Add the Poblano and Jalapeno peppers, bell pepper and garlic. Saute for 3 more minutes or until the onions are translucent.

3. Sprinkle the flour over the veggies and toss to coat well. Keep stirring this mixture together over the heat for a minute or two. The objective is to cook the flour a bit before adding the liquid.

4. Add the chicken stock and stir well with a whisk to break up the flour and blend it in with the stock.

5. Add the cilantro and cumin and let the mixture simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.

6. After the mixture has simmered for 10 minutes and the flour has thickened the stock a bit, you will want to add your milk and cream. Stir it in well and reduce the heat to low. If you bring the mixture to a boil at this point, you will curdle the cream, so keep the heat low while you're bringing it back up to temperature.

7. You have two options at this point...If you have an immersion blender, break that thing out and start to blend your soup right in the pot. You want your soup as smooth and creamy as possible, so keep going for a while. Alternately, you can dump the soup into your blender and blend it well. This will probably take a couple of batches though and be careful that your blender lid doesn't fly off due to steam build up. You will want to crack that little round plug ever so slightly to let off a little pressure once you start to blend.

Once you have a smooth mixture, place it back in the pot and rewarm if necessary.

Serve immediately and EnJoy!

*There are a couple of ways to roast your peppers. If you have a gas stove top, you can turn the burner on high and place your chili peppers right over the flame. Use tongs to turn them until the skin is evenly charred on the outside. Once this is accomplished, place the peppers in a paper bag and seal tightly for 10 minutes. This will cause the peppers to continue to steam and they cool down and will make it easy to peel off the charred skin.

- Alternately, you can use your BBQ and do just as listed above - Alternately again, you can put your peppers on a baking sheet and place them under the broiler (close to the element) and keep turning them until they are evenly blackened. Once you've let them cool in the paper bag, you will want to remove them, peel off the majority of the charred skin and remove the seeds.