I had a hankering for tomato soup when I was in the supermarket the other day so I wheeled over to the the cans of Heinz tomato soup, picked one up and turned the label around to look at the ingredients. Yikes. I couldn’t understand much of it so I put the can back and decided to make it myself. Soup is the perfect lazy dinner because once you have softened your veggies, the rest of the time it is simmering away taking care of itself (as an aside, someone was telling me once about a soup maker, an appliance which basically cooked and blended the food all at once. I didn’t get it, isn’t that what a saucepan and stick blender are for??!)
I didn’t have quite enough fresh tomatoes when I made this the other night, so I substituted with some canned and it worked fine. The riper and more flavoursome your tomatoes, the better your soup will be. I left the skins on my tomatoes because that’s where a lot of the nutrients are but you can peel them first if you wish*.
Ingredients
1 carrot, diced- 2 sticks celery, sliced
- 1 brown onion, diced
- 1 clove garlic, peeled
- 1kg tomatoes, core removed, chopped
- 2 bay leaves
- 1L chicken or vegetable stock
- 100mL cream
Method
- Heat a good lug of oil in a saucepan over medium heat and cook the carrot, celery, onion and garlic until soft.
- Add the tomatoes, bay leaf and stock and reduce heat to a busy simmer.
- Cook gently for about 40 minutes or until the stock has reduced slightly.
- Fish out the bay leaves, pour in the cream and whiz with a stick blender until smooth.
- Season with salt and pepper and add a bit of water or cook a little longer until it’s just the right consistency.
- Serve with toasted cheese sandwiches.
*To peel tomatoes, put a cross in the bottom of each and cover with boiling water. Leave for a couple of minutes and then you can easily peel the skin off.
