Soup for me, soup for you

Soul satisfying. Warmifying. Stupifiying.

Soup.

I love soup. Can you tell? I could eat soup and a sandwich five nights out of the week. Unfortunately, the only other person in my little family that would do the same is my son, Ben.

What’s great about soup is you can make it anything you want! I can make soup out of anything. And in fact, sometimes I do.

Leftovers – which generally make my favorite soups. Canned beans. Frozen veggies. Fresh veggies. Some combination of these.

Crock pot. Stove top. Any way to get it hot.

But today I’m making fresh tomato soup. Which I’ve never made before. But I had two gallon Ziplock bags of heirloom tomatoes in my freezer, leftover from our CSA, so I’m giving it a shot. We got a lot of heirloom tomatoes, which are my favorite, by the way, and which make me so unreasonably happy. I am the only one who really eats raw tomatoes around here, so I stored ‘em up for soup!

Did you know that when you freeze tomatoes and unthaw them the peel comes right off? Also, the liquid comes right out! This is perfect if you are making sauce, but if you do this, please make sure to save the liquid! You can use it later for soup – any kind of soup! Just put it in a bag and throw it in the freezer.

For this soup, I saved the liquid. This is what my tomatoes look like post-peeling:

Herloom tomatoes after they are thawed and peeled

Them throw them in the blender to blend up all the bits. Save out some tomatoes if you want it more bisque-like.

Blended heirloom tomatoes

Now get out a frying pan and throw some onion and garlic in. Cook them in olive oil (NO SALT AND PEPPER) low and slow, so they get gooey-carmelly, like this.

Carmelized onions and garlic

Now deglaze with wine.

Carmalized onions and garlic deglazed with Cabernet

Let that bubble for a minute while you scrape up any bits, turn it off and let it cool for a copule of minutes before you blend it up – using some of the tomato blend if you need it. Add salt and pepper, herbs, and whatever other seasonings you may want.

Let it simmer and reduce on low for as long as you can, and adjust the seasoning. I added a little dark brown sugar and a little cream to pull it together, and garnished it with a little sour cream, green onions, parsley, a drizzle of olive oil, and pepper. Served with a lightly dressed salad and a grilled muenster on homemade Italian, (and wine, of course!) and I was one happy lady!

Heirloom tomato soup!

Grilled cheese on homemade italian and salad

And there you have it. A taste of summer, with the winter, soul-satisfying comfort of soup.

Do you love cooking and eating soup as much as I do?

P.S. sorry about the cell phone pics – I couldn’t find my camera!