When inspiration strikes...look out

I was at a barbeque most of the afternoon and basically pigged out (I have decided that the next time I go to a party I will be bringing 7 layer dip...no question. I love that stuff) so I was in no mood to eat a whole dinner tonight. However, I ended up cooking anyway: my roommate was making a batch of soup and when she opened the cupboard, I saw peanut butter and a little light bulb went on in my head. I was going to make soup with peanut butter.

To the internets! But all I could find were recipes where the flavours were peanut and only peanut, and that wasn't really what I wanted. I was going for more of a peanut-vegetable combination, but wasn't sure what sort of vegetable would go well with peanut butter. I decided to just go for it, and opened the fridge: Mirepoix time! Onion, check; carrot, check; celery....heyyy, celery goes with peanut butter! And I just happened to have the remains of a head that was just past the point of when I wanted to eat it raw.

So the celery and a little bit each of carrot and onion became the base for my experimental soup, which by the time it was done included peanut butter, milk, curry powder, cayenne, nutmeg, brown sugar to make up for the fact that there was none in my peanut butter, and salt and pepper. I added enough water to make 3 smallish servings, guessing that with the peanut butter it would end up being rich enough that I wouldn't want to eat a lot.



It turned out decent enough, although it is without a doubt the ugliest thing I've ever cooked, despite my attempt to garnish (green onion would have been better, but.....I didn't have any. Unless you count the brown slimy mess that I cleaned out of the crisper today). The celery wasn't really there the way I would have preferred, but I'm not sure whether the solution is to just use more celery, or add celery seed or celeriac (neither of which I have ever cooked with).

Either way, this is something I want to try again sometime, although maybe I'll leave it for some time when it's not pushing 30 degrees out. I wonder if I could eat it cold?