Fresh Tomato Soup

Brandon walked in from the garden the other night with about 20 gigantic tomatoes in his hands and I just kind of thought ugh not more tomatoesbut then I decided I should just embrace them while we have them and make some new tomato recipes.

As you might know from my earlier posts, I am so not a soup girl, but staring at all those tomatoes just made me think of tomato soup (which thankfully B loves). So I decided to give it a try.

It was actually delicious! We had “cheater grilled cheese” to go with it but real grilled cheese with fresh apples or bacon would have been even better.

Fresh Tomato Soup:

6 large, ripe tomatoes, cored and roughly chopped

2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 cup water and 1 bullion cube (or 1 cup of chicken or veggie stock if you have it which we did not)

3 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

1 whole shallot chopped

2 Tbsp. butter

1/4 skim milk/heavy cream/whatever you have

1 Tbsp. of sugar if your soup tastes extra acidic (mine did)

Salt and pepper

1 Tbsp. of fresh chopped basil + more to garnish

Parmesan cheese- for serving

Heat olive oil in a large sauce pan. Add tomatoes, garlic, and shallot and simmer until tomatoes have released all their juices and the garlic and shallot are fragrant. Add water and bullion cube and bring to a boil. Add the basil and let boil for 2-3 minutes then turn off the heat. Let tomatoes cool for a few minutes.  Once the mixture is no longer bubbling, use an immersion blender right in the sauce pan to blend everything up. (You could also transfer the tomato mixture to a regular blender if you want but something about hot liquid and possible blender explosions scare me). Turn the burner back onto low and add the butter, milk, chopped basil, salt, pepper, and sugar- if you need it. Give everything another round with the immersion blender and your done! If you or your family prefer a smooth tomato soup, strain your mixture over a bowl and discard the pulp left behind. I strained our soup but tasted the pulp mixture- it was so delicious I put it right back in! Serve with fresh basil leaves and parmesan cheese.

But you can’t forget having something to dunk in there! You could use crusty french bread or rolls but these cheater grilled cheese literally take 1 minute and no effort. Woo hoo!

Pop a hamburger bun into the toaster on a medium setting (you want the bread to come out slightly brown and a little bit crusty). When it pops immediately take the bread out and place two slices of cheese in the middle. Then just squish it together. The heat of the bun (and then the soup) will melt the cheese even more and give you that perfect combination of gooey cheese and crusty bread that you need with soup. Plus your not slathering the bread in yummy grilled cheese butter- which is always helpful on the waistline.

So give tomato soup a try. Use up all those tomatoes you’re getting out of your own garden or drooling over in the supermarket.

I’ll be sharing another super easy tomato recipe later this week! What do you do with all of your tomatoes?