Spicy Tomato and Rice Soup with Homemade Croutons

Sunday I made a delicious soup from tomato juice, rice, olive oil, garlic, chilies, onion, black pepper and sourdough bread. First I made the croutons. I cut up a few pieces of sourdough bread. The end pieces work best for this purpose. Then I fried them in olive oil in my wok. I fried the bread using high heat until the pieces were nice and golden. They resembled miniature pieces of fried slice. Then I scooped them out and drained them on paper towels. Next I chopped up one onion, three cloves of garlic and three Serrano chilies and cooked them in the oil using medium heat. When the onion turned translucent I added a small bowl of cooked rice to the wok and fried it. Then I turned the heat down to low and added 64 ounces of tomato juice and fresh ground black pepper. I cooked the soup on low heat, stirring every few minutes until the concoction started to bubble. At this point I turned off the stove, ladled the soup into a bowl and added the croutons. I made four bowls worth. I ate two on Sunday night. This was probably a mistake since the rice makes the soup very hearty. Yesterday, I had another bowl. Tonight I will eat the last bowl. All I have to do is make some more croutons. You can do a lot with a wok, not just Asian food.