Tomato Soup comes from a can. It is bright red.
Santa Claus is also bright red, and he is real.
These are just some of the truths of my childhood. Now I know better and I’ve grown up a little, I know that half of this just isn’t true. You can make Tomato Soup yourself!
The origins of each tomato vary in this soup, some from the local markets, some from the supermarket, and – most notably – 2 are from our very own backyard! Our neglected Roma Tomato vine bore fruit, and the quartered tomatoes sitting proudly on top are our very own. I’m very proud – and quite surprised that they weren’t eaten first by fruit fly and local possums!
I first stumbled across the idea of Roasting Tomatoes for soup on one of my favourite blogs 101 cookbooks. Please take a good look at her website – oh… and then come back! This lady can sure make rustic, healthy food look sexy…. what am I saying? Healthy food IS sexy! Especially this soup.
The burnished tomatoes add little flecks of blacky-brown to the soup, which almost has a silky/frothy consistancy despite the presence of whole tomato seeds and cracked pepper corns. It fills you up and gives your body a warm glow from the inside. The perfect soup for a cold winter’s night… but wait! It’s a Tomato Soup, so you can serve it cold… call it Gazpacho and you’ve got a winner for a steamy summer’s day!
Serve this soup with Ham and Cheeses Toasts – Recipe and pic is below.
Ingredients
10 large Tomatoes (any variety)
1 full globe of garlic
1 red onion
Salt
Pepper
1 chicken stock cube (or 1 cup of real stock)
Method
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees
2. Cut tomatoes in half, cut the top off the garlic, peel the onion, keep the root attached and slice up to the root.
3. Spray all with olive oil, crack over salt and pepper. Put in oven for about 30-40 minutes or until slightly ‘cajun’
4. Let it cool a little and remove the skins from the tomatoes, put into a large bowl. Squeeze out a couple of garlic cloves from their papery skins and chuck in the onion. Add the chicken stock cube.
5. BUZZ with a stick blender
6. check for seasoning. Add extra garlic and salt and pepper as required. (I added about 6 cloves)
7. Serve with Cheesy Toasts
Ham Cheesy Toasts
Ingredients
French Stick, sliced
Cheese (any firm cheese), finely grated
Ham, finely sliced
leftover roasted garlic (from soup recipe)
Method
Grill the bread on one side, turn over and spread the garlic over it. (once it is roasted, the garlic spreads like butter)
sprinkle over cheese and ham. Toast until bubbled and brown.
Something i forgot to mention is that Garlic is MILD when it’s Roasted. The flavour is very subtle, so you can eat heaps of it and still be confident even on a first date!
[...] This time, we actually forgot about our tomato plant. I had picked a couple of them and put them in Roasted Tomato Soup I made ages ago. I thought that was the end of it, the vine looked sad, and I never have high [...]