Paleo Roasted Tomato Soup

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