Don't Fear the Blender

'Meba when we made this White Bean Soup from the Williams Sonoma catalog and I turned up my nose at making the accompanying roasted red pepper tapenade on crostini? It was a major occasion for you too, I'm sure. 

Well, we made the soup again on Sunday night and I had some time in the car, so I read through the whole recipe and realized that the tapendade not only required just 1 ingredient that I didn't already have at home, but also gave me another reason to use my immersion blender.  Oh what I was missing!  The tapenade was zingy and a little spicy and very bright in flavor.  It was the perfect accompaniment to the smooth, smoky soup.  I should have trusted Chuck (Williams) on this one.