Tomato Soup
Recipe type: Soup
Serves: 4
The recipe for this soup was sent out on the newsletter for Red Earth Farm, a CSA farm that has a drop here in Haverford Township. The original recipe comes from Mollie Katzen’s Still Life with Menu, a seminal vegetarian cookbook. I’ve further adapted it a bit. The best thing about this soup – besides its clean, bright flavor – is its flexibility. You can make up a huge batch of this and after the first night of unadulterated tomato soup can use it in myriad ways afterwards. I used it as a base for a chick-pea and pasta dish, adding a few North African spices to alter the flavor profile. It can be the base for a more robust soup -just add some more vegetables, beans and chicken or vegetable stock and you’d have a robust dinner soup. It can be the foundation for a pasta sauce with other meat or cheese elements, either on top of pasta or baked. Best of all, it will freeze nicely and so you can bottle tomato sunshine in August to be enjoyed in November!
Ingredients
- 3 pounds peeled, chopped tomatoes
- 2-4 cloves of garlic (to taste)
- A handful of fresh basil leaves, chopped fine
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- Fresh ground pepper to taste
- Chopped herbs for garnish: dill, tarragon, or summer savory
Instructions
- Place the tomatoes, garlic, and basil in a soup pot and bring to a boil; allow to simmer for 10 – 15 minutes and either puree using an immersion blender or allow the soup to cool slightly and use a standard blender to puree.
- Place back in the soup pot and stir in the sugar, salt, and black pepper. Serve, and garnish each bowl with your herb of choice.