Tomato Soup

Knowing that my garden is swamping me with tomatoes at the moment my friend, Laila, sent me a recipe for tomato soup.  It looked simple and tasty, so today I gave it a try.  It's a winner!

It's a basic recipe and I can see many additions to change it up.  You could add rice or sausage chunks - the possibilities are endless.

To the tomatoes, onions and carrots, I added celery - all ingredients from the garden.  The Health Kick tomatoes are perfect for this soup as there are relatively few seeds.  These tomatoes have 50% more lycopene than regular varieties and the plants are loaded.  I also threw in some Principe Borghese tomatoes as I used a package of turkey stock that was 4 cups instead of the 3 mentioned in the recipe.

Onions, celery and carrots were chopped and then sautéed in butter until the onions had started to soften.

I quartered the Health Kick tomatoes, but left the Principe Borghese whole.

Seasoning was a strip of lemon rind, bay leaf, salt, pepper and sugar.

When the onions had softened, I put them in a large pot with the tomatoes, stock and seasonings and brought it to a boil, then simmered it for 30 minutes.   I pureed it in my food processor, but it's times like these that I wish I hadn't given away my blender which does a better job of it.

I garnished my bowl of soup with a dollop of sour cream and a chiffonade of basil leaves.  Delicious! Thanks, Laila!

Here's the recipe - I added celery and changed the peppercorns to fresh-ground pepper.  I didn't bother with the cream, but garnished it with sour cream and thinly sliced basil leaves.  And of course, I didn't peel the carrots!

Basic Tomato Soup

2 Tbsp butter
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
2 lb tomatoes, quartered
3 cups chicken stock
1 1" strip of lemon rind
1 bay leaf
6 peppercorns
1 tsp granulated sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup cream (optional)

In a heavy pot, heat the butter on medium-high heat.  Add onion, carrot and lemon rind.  Cook, stirring until the vegetables are slightly softened - about 2 minutes

Add the tomatoes, stock, bay leaf, peppercorns, sugar and salt.  Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer gently for 30 minutes.  Remove the bay leaf and lemon rind.

Puree in a food processor.  Return to the pot, add 1/4 cup cream (optional) and simmer for 5 minutes.