Roasted Yellow Pepper Soup - sweet yellow bell peppers washed

Method

• Preheat oven to 400F (200C).
• Place peppers on oiled cookie sheet and place in oven.
• Roast peppers, turning occasionally, for 20 to 30 minutes, until the skins puff up and is mostly blackened.
• Place in bowl and cover with plastic wrap to sweat.
• While peppers are roasting, melt butter over low heat and cook onion gently with salt, pepper, and cumin for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until translucent.
• Add garlic and cook until aroma is released.
• Sprinkle flour over and cook, stirring, another 5 minutes.
• Stir in stock or water and bring to the simmer.
• Turn off heat and set a food mill fitted with fine sieve over pot.
• Unwrap the bowl of peppers; they should be very soft.
• Pull out and discard cores.
• Place contents of bowl, juice and all, into food mill and pass peppers through.
• Remove mill from pot and clean out pepper skins and seeds by rotating blade backwards.
• Whisk contents of pot thoroughly and simmer 10 minutes for the flavors to come together.
• Whisk in milk, pass through food mill again into clean pot, heat gently and serve.
• You could also make this soup with red peppers.
• Better yet, make both and serve a ladle of each in the same bowl.
• When you buy peppers for roasting, choose those with flat sides as the very curvy ones don't roast evenly.
• Roasting over a flame results in roasted peppers with a firmer texture, perfect for salads etc.
• Oven roasting result in a softer pepper; using the food mill to puree eliminates the need to spend time peeling and seeding.
• To make this meal even faster, you can roast and puree the peppers a day or two before.
• Roasted pepper puree also freezes beautifully.