Tomato soup

I love tomato soup. I am not alone in this, surely. What I don't like about most tomato soup, though, or at least the kind one often finds in restaurants is that it can be really heavy on the cream front. Tasty, sure, but I like tomato soup best when it's mostly just tomatoes. So I made some the other day. I know it's not tomato season, and I will assure you that I thought about that as I picked up a pound of hothouse tomatoes at the grocery store. I suppose I figure I'm eating a lot more locally and sustainably these days than I have before, so the occasional yen for tomato soup is probably less of a big deal if one wants to track such things.

So, back to the soup.

I took the pound of tomatoes, sliced them in half lengthwise (they were vaguely roma-shaped), and put them on a baking sheet. I also chopped half and onion and broke off a few garlic cloves from a head of garlic and added to the baking sheet. I added salt, pepper, dried basil and olive oil, then roasted on 325 degrees for about 90 minutes, checking once in a while and aiming for quite caramelized.

After roasting everything, I transferred the tomatoes and company to a medium sized pot, then added a cup of vegetable broth and heated it long enough to warm the broth. This yields a fairly chunky tomato soup. If you prefer a thinner consistency, you could certainly add more stock. It looked like this (steam fogs up the camera):

 

Then I used an immersion blender. I always get excited when I'm able to use an immersion blender! My little brother got me one for Christmas this past year and it is really quite dreamy. My apartment is the size of a shoebox and I don't have countertop space or outlets to support bigger appliances (food processor, etc), so an immersion blender is basically the best invention for small apartment cooking that I can think of. 

And the resulting product looked a little something like this ...

It was filling and rich and delightful. I was skeptical about using dried basil at first, but it holds up way better during 90 minutes of cooking than I think fresh basil would (though, of course, if using fresh, I guess just add it at to the mix when adding broth).

Recipe

Makes 2 servings; 4 if you're serving it as more of a starter

1 lb tomatoes, cut lengthwise
1/2 yellow onion, cut into 1-inch chunks, roughly
4-6 garlic cloves, skin on
2-3 tbsp dried basil
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 c. vegetable broth

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Arrange tomatoes, garlic, onion on baking sheet and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and basil. Drizzle with olive oil. Into the oven for 90 minutes, checking occasionally, until tomatoes are beautifully caramelized. Remove pan and transfer tomatoes, et al to medium soup pot on stove. Add 1 cup of vegetable broth and heat until everything is warmed. Turn down heat and let cool slightly. Blend to your heart's content with desired blending implement (immersion blender, food processor, Vita-Mix, what have you). Serve piping hot.

I topped mine with some green onions I had lying around, but croutons would be tasty here, as would crusty bread or a grilled cheese. Incidentally, Tillamook Creamery is on the Oregon Coast (and the Oregon Coast is one of my top five favorite places on the planet; below is a picture I took there a few years ago) and they make amazing cheese, which, while not vegan, would make the sort of grilled cheese sandwich worthy of accompanying this soup. Yum.