Creamy Red Pepper Soup

Today seems like a great day to make a creamy soup. I have a few things going for me. I have a bunch of onions from my Dad's friend Bob's incredible vegetable garden, a couple jalapenos from my deck garden and a gallon-sized bag full of red pepper strips left over from a photoshoot last week featuring frozen ethnic entrees. Not to mention, even though it's August 29, it's only 58º outside, and raining. Believe it or not, I actually made a point of writing down the ingredients as I put them into the pot so I thought I had better get the recipe onto my blog now or it may never get there. The piece of scrap paper will surely be lost in the sea of papers soon to come home from school (only 1 week left of summer).

Roughly chop the following ingredients:
1 medium onion
3 carrots
3 stalks of celery
1 large potato, peeled
3 garlic cloves
2 jalapenos, seeds removed

Other ingredients:
1 tsp coarse salt
at least that much fresh ground pepper
4 cups frozen red pepper strips
32 oz. chicken broth
14.5 can diced tomatoes
1 cup half & half
4 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp flour
fresh cilantro, if desired

Place fresh veggies, salt and pepper in a pan with olive oil and about 1 cup of chicken broth and saute until totally soft. Add red pepper strips (I used frozen -- not sure if you can buy them frozen. If you were to use fresh, I'd toss them in with the veggies above and cook those until soft too.) Stir until well blended and cook for another 5 min or so. Add 3 tbsp flour and stir to cover everything ... it'll be pasty. Add diced tomatoes and the rest of the chicken broth and let the whole mixture cook for about 30 minutes on low. Blend well with stick blender until desired consistency. Just before serving, add cream. Top with chopped cilantro if desired.