1. To roast a bell pepper, just do it on a stove top grill or hold it on the flames of the stove. After roasting it, put it in a closed container or wrap it in the foil till is is cool to touch. peel the skin off, chop and continue with the soup process. Roasted bell pepper is also available in markets. this method can be used to roast any kind of bell pepper.
2. You can add barley/Quinoa into any of the soups. Sometimes rice also blends well with soups. Just 1/2 cup of any of these uncooked grains go a long way. If you use barley, please make sure it was soaked for 4 hours atleast.
3. How to chop Orange fast?
Wash the orange, slice Some of the top and bottom off. Place it on a chopping board. Now from the tip of your knife, cut through the skin from top to bottom, make sure you are taking all the white part while you are cutting. Be warned, if some of the pith ends up in you cooking, it will end up making everything bitter. Do not worry if you cut some fruit along with the skin. you can eat it later or apply it to your face... :D. You will lose some fruit with the skin. After you have taken out all the skin, cut between the fruit membrane to get wedges. you can see the membrane as a whitish coloured line between the orange wedges. After you get the fruit out of membrane, chop it into small bits or use it as your recipe calls. The oranges we find in India are different, the orange I am talking about is something like musambi. For the Indian orange version, you just skin it and separate the wedges, slit the membrane and extract the pulp.
