It began to downpour yesterday afternoon, right as I was leaving work (yay for my flowers, boo for my walk). After a quick mental evaluation of my fridge and the gloom and doom outside, I decided that grilled cheeses and tomato soup were in order. Our next door neighbor has a fabulous garden, and is generous with his gorgeous tomatoes (note- retired agriculture professors make excellent neighbors).
Remembering having made some good tomato soup before, I checked the blog. 2 different recipes came up. Both delicious, but neither was quite what I wanted- one used canned tomatoes, and the other took too long. Google and Ina Garten to the rescue! This recipe is perfect because it took about 45 minutes (including cook time), uses fresh tomatoes and basil, and is delicious. Oh, and you don't have to peel the tomatoes. Victory!
From the Back to Basics cookbook:
Ingredients
3 tablespoons good olive oil
1 1/2 cups chopped red onions (2 onions)
2 carrots, unpeeled and chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic (3 cloves)
4 pounds vine-ripened tomatoes, coarsely chopped (5 large)
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/4 cup packed chopped fresh basil leaves
3 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup heavy cream
Directions
Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium-low heat. Add the onions and carrots and saute for about 10 minutes, until very tender. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, sugar, tomato paste, basil, chicken stock, salt, and pepper and stir well. Bring the soup to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer, uncovered, for 30 to 40 minutes, until the tomatoes are very tender.
With either an immersion blender, or by pouring it into a regular blender puree the soup. Add the cream to the soup and reheat the soup over low heat just until hot.
YUM!
Of course by the time I loaded up Miss Priss, ran to the grocery store to pick up some cream, chopped the veggies, and set it to boil it was pretty outside.
I let Hubs at home while the soup simmered, and took the baby for a humid and sweaty walk.
The grilled cheese and soup were still mighty fine, sunny weather notwithstanding. Now, it's raining again, so I will have a rainy day soup leftover lunch.
So now I have three tomato soup recipes on the blog. It's a bit of an issue, especially since Hubs prefers Campbells above all. Sigh.
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It's raining here so I now feel a grocery run on the way home for the above dinner is in order. Yummmmm.
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