Sunday, November 7, 2010

Oh How I Love The Tomato!

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If I had to pick one fruit/veggie to eat the rest of my life, it would have to be the tomato. I love mangoes (my all time favorite traditional fruit) but the tomato is so versatile...it would win every time!

This week I experimented with another recipe from Jamie Oliver's cookbook: Food Revolution. I love how his recipes focus on simple techniques, bold flavors and above all...FRESH ingredients! Since I am married to a hardcore soup-lover, I usually try to do one soup at least every other week. Now that we're into autumn weather and the rest of us are up for soup too, I might try to add a new soup each week instead!

This week I tried Tomato Soup and made grilled cheese sandwiches with sourdough bread (one of my vices!) and provolone cheese (one of Aaron's vices!). Needless to say, we were happy with this dinner! Its a surprisingly easy, yet hearty and fresh meal that I'm sure we'll be having again.

On a fun side-note, it also gave me the opportunity to use my brand new immersion blender for the first time!

Tomato Soup

Ingredients
- 2 carrots
- 2 celery stalks
- 2 medium sized onions
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 and 3/4 quarts of chicken or veggie broth
- olive oil
- 2 14 oz. cans of plum tomatoes
- 6 large fresh tomatoes
- basil (fresh if you can)
- salt and pepper

Instructions


1. Peel and roughly slice the carrots, celery and onions. Then mince the garlic. Put the broth in a saucepan and heat until boiling. Heat about 2 tbsp. olive oil in a large saucepan - once heated, add all your chopped veggies.











2. Cook for about 10 minutes until the carrots have softened, but are still holding their shape and the onion is nice and golden. To speed up the process, pop the lid onto the pot!











3. Add the boiling broth to the pan with your canned and fresh whole tomatoes, add the salt, pepper and dried basil (I didn't have fresh). Give it a good stir and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the whole tomatoes are soft, it took me about 15-20 minutes.











4. Remove the pan from heat and season again with salt and pepper (add fresh basil at this point if you have it), then use an immersion blender to make the soup smooth. If you don't have an immersion blender, you can pour it (CAREFULLY!) into a traditional blender and smooth it that way.














*Just a quick note - when using an immersion blender, make sure to keep it COMPLETELY immersed at all times and don't tilt it up out of the pot too much, otherwise you'll end up with this...











Oh well...some lessons are messier to learn than others! In the end we had a delicious tomato soup I will absolutely make again!

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