Chickpea Soup

I just made this soup a few nights ago...forgive me its not completely exact in the directions, a lot of it is to taste, anyway. So easy, filling and mostly made from things in your pantry.

Use a medium-sized soup pot. Drizzle about 2 tbsp. olive oil in the bottom of the pot on medium heat. Add 1/2 large or 1 small onion, 3 carrots, 3 celery stalks and small jar of roasted red peppers. Don't go crazy chopping everything because at the end you blend it all anyway. Let those ingredients soften somewhat, stirring occasionally...about 5 minutes. Add 2 cans of drained and rinsed chickpeas and 2 cans of chicken broth. Let come to a boil and then let simmer about 15-20 minutes or until veggies are soft. The spices you add are to your own taste, but this is what I used---3 pinches of cayenne pepper, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, few shakes of cinnnamon, black pepper. Put this in, stir and then taste...you may want more cumin, more heat, etc.
Now take a hand-held emulsifier (or use a blender if you don't have the hand-held, just keep the removable insert in the top off or the hot soup will spray all over your kitchen) and blend the soup until smooth.
This soup is kind of like a warm hummus with some sweet spice to it. I served it w/ stir fried tofu cooked w/ garlic and cinnamon...I put a few tofu pieces on the top of each soup bowl. It'd be good w/ a dollop of some spiced yogurt or sour cream also--low fat obviously since this soup is very healthy and low-cal.

Try it...this soup is delicious, even my toddler liked it.