African Peanut Soup

I've been wanting to try out an African peanut soup for a while because they sound so damn yummy (and because of my eternal hard-on for peanut butter), so I finally dragged my ass out of my snow-filled laziness and nabbed the ingredients the other weekend. I had two different recipes that sounded delightful and both with their own perks (one had mushrooms and sweet potatoes, the other had brown rice and red peppers), so I decided to mutate the two into one giant Siamese-twin soup recipe. And I must say, it was really damn good and really damn hearty. It also was chockful of peanut-buttery goodness, and you can't make my belly much happier than that.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 tablespoons canola or olive oil


• 2 medium onions, chopped


• 1 large red bell pepper, chopped


• 1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped


• 4 cloves garlic, minced


• 1/4 teaspoon pepper


• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes


• 1/2 teaspoon ginger


• dash cayenne


• 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes, with liquid


• 4 cups vegetable broth or stock


• 1 cup sweet potato, cooked and mashed


• 2/3 cup natural peanut butter


• 1/2 cup uncooked brown rice


• (extra water to thin out, depending on how thick you like it)

DIRECTIONS
In a large pot, heat the oil up over medium heat. Toss in the onions, pepper, and mushrooms. Cook until the onion has become translucent. Add the garlic and spices, and cook a minute or so more. Add the vegetable stock and crushed tomatoes. Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes on low heat. Add mashed sweet potato to the soup. Remove about 1/3 of a cup of the soup and pour it in a bowl with your peanut butter. Blend the two until the peanut butter has thinned out. Pour the mixture into the soup and mix. (Mixing the two before will keep the peanut-butter from getting clumpily lost in the soup without thinning out.) Add the rice, cover, and simmer for another 15 minutes or so (or until the rice is tender). Add extra water if the soup is too thick for your liking.