Crab and Corn Bisque

From: WebMD.COM, October 2013...picked this recipe up from reading a magazine at a doctor's office.  Pretty simple to make and delicious!

Bisque It
This hearty bisque is perfect with a salad and crusty whole wheat roll for dinner.  Or serve smaller portions as a first course.

Crab and Corn Bisque
Makes 6 servings

Ingredients

Bisque
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 small red pepper, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 cup low-sodium tomato juice
2 cups fat-free seafood, chicken, or vegetable stock
1 tbsp lemon juice
4 cups corn kernels (if using frozen, thaw first)
2 cups low-fat milk
1 lb lump crabmeat, drained, with shell pieces removed
dash of salt
pinch of red or black pepper

Garnish
3 tbsp chopped fresh basil
1 medium tomato, seeded and finely diced
1 avocado, chopped
2 tsp fresh lime juice
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
dash of salt

Directions
1.  Heat a large, heavy-bottomed stockpot over medium heat.  Add oil, onion, pepper, celery, and garlic, and cook 5-7 minutes until vegetables are soft and translucent.  Add flour and cook until blended with vegetables, 2-3 minutes.
2.  Add tomato juice, stock, lemon juice, and corn to the pot, stirring to combine.  Heat 10-15 minutes until corn is tender.
3.  Reduce heat to medium-low.  Add milk and crab, and stir carefully to combine.  Heat gently 4-5 minutes.  Season with salt and red or black pepper.
4.  In a small bowl, make the garnish: Combine basil, tomato, avocado, lime juice, olive oil, and salt.  Toss and set aside.
5.  Ladle the soup into bowls, top with tomato-avocado mixture, and serve.

MMWM Notes:
*  My family is not big corn eaters so I used only a cup of corn kernels and then added three cups of low-sodium white beans (like Great Northern or Cannellini beans), which was delicious and I think made the soup even heartier.
*  I ended up only having 1/2 of a red pepper (my husband, Mike, used half of it for a lunch salad...same salad he used my cucumber for which I needed for the Asian Cucumber Slaw recipe--ha ha) so I chopped up a few carrots and added that too...seemed to work just fine and added another vegetable into the mix.
*  I used imitation crab meat instead of real crab meat (crab meat seemed very expensive and I tend to like the imitation stuff anyway)...still came out very tasty.  The second time I made this, I used real crab meat and honestly, I think the imitation crab meat worked better.

Nutrition Per Serving
288 calories, 10g protein, 37 g carbohydrate, 9 g fat (2 g saturated fat), 49 mg cholesterol, 6g fiber, 12 g sugar, 320 mg sodium.  Calories from fat: 27%.