The weather is starting to change. I absolutely LOVE it. Fall is, by far, my favorite season. I love when the leaves start to change colors and the air becomes cool and crisp. I also love the food that comes with fall. It's time to make the roasted pork loin, dishes with apples, anything with cinnamon, and soups! I'm not a huge fan of tomatoes. Actually, I'm not a fan of tomatoes at all.... but, I wanted to try making a roasted tomato soup. I did some research and found a recipe from Tyler Florence.
I've talked before about how amazing local farmers markets are. On Friday, I stopped by the farmer's market and picked up some good stuff, including all the ingredients to make this:
Paleo Roasted Tomato Soup
* 2 1/2 lbs mixed tomatoes - I used grape, heirloom, and some sort of orangey yellow thing
* 8 cloves of garlic
* 1/2 cup fresh basil
* 1 small yellow onion
* 1 qt chicken broth (that's why there's a frozen chicken in the background)
* 1/2 cup heavy cream (optional)
* 1/4 cup olive oil
* 1 tbs dried oregano
* salt and pepper
First, I made some chicken broth. You definitely don't have to make it from scratch, but I think it's healthier and tastier if you do. I didn't have a ton of extra veggies floating around, so I just threw the frozen stewing hen, a few black peppercorns, and a bay leaf into the pot with a bunch of water. The stewing hen was frozen solid, so it didn't quite fit in the pot, but that's ok. I turned the heat on high and brought the whole thing to a boil, then turned down the heat to medium low. I let it simmer for a few hours.
Here's what it looked like after a few hours. You can see how yellow the broth is from all the flavor. Can you say "yum!"?
I took the chicken out and shredded it to use in a different meal. I also strained the broth and froze some of it since it made about 2-3 quarts. I put 1 quart back into the pot.
Meanwhile, I cut up the tomatoes and onion into big chunks. I also peeled and crushed the garlic and put it on a foil lined pan. I tossed everything in the olive oil and sprinkled some salt and pepper over the whole thing. Then, I thew it in the oven at 450 for about 15-20 minutes, or until everything looked like it was starting to caramelize.
Here's how great the tomatoes and the onions and garlic looked after roasting. It just brings out this delicious flavor!
Next, I threw all of the roasted veggies in the pot with the chicken broth and the basil leaves. I turned the heat to medium high and let everything simmer/boil until the liquid was reduced to about 1/3 of what it was.
So here is what it looks like when it had reduced a bit. When you reduce a soup, you're basically letting a lot of the water evaporate out. This leaves all of the flavor in the soup and just makes a more concentrated flavor.
At this point, I used an immersion blender and pureed everything up. I'm sure it would have been good if all the tomatoes were cut into bite sized chunks, but, again, I'm not a fan of tomatoes and wanted it all to be pureed. You could always throw everything into a blender if you don't have an immersion blender.
After pureeing, I added in the heavy cream (which is totally optional if you don't like/can't handle dairy). The original recipe didn't call for oregano, but when I tasted it, I thought it needed a bit more flavor, so I added in some dried oregano. Next time, I'll add in the oregano when I add in the basil.
So here's the finished product. I added a little bit of parmesan cheese to the top, which just made it taste that much better. The final result? Curt LOVED it. He's not a huge soup fan, but he definitely had a few bowls of it. I loved it too. It had the flavors of a yummy pasta sauce, but it was a soup. I think it's a big success if you don't like tomatoes, but like this soup. It's just perfect for a crisp fall day! It's also a great way to use up some of those summer tomatoes that you might have left over.
Enjoy,
Jenn
