Fresh Tomato Soup Recipe

Here we go again! Another recipe. Oh Shush.

I had a bunch of tomatoes laying around from our tomato plants (duh. what other kind of plant would they be from?) and I was worried they would go bad. And come on, let's be honest, you can only eat so much salad with cherry tomatoes on top! Plus a friend had posted pictures of her tomato soup and it just sounded sooo good and comforting. Especially after a fun filled day in Santa Cruz, some home cooked comfort food just sounded perfect. After looking online for a few recipes, I discovered that we had everything we would need at home and started tinkering. So unusual to not have to go to the store, but a very welcome sensation!

So here it is.

About 2 pounds of tomatoes (any combination: cherry, slicing tomatoes, heirlooms, whatever)
Herbs from the garden: sage, rosemary, basil, tiny bit of mint
2 bay leaves
garlic
chicken broth
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup olive oil
salt, pepper

Take your tomatoes and wash, core and cut them in half. If you are throwing some cherry tomatoes in the mix (like I did), I would leave them whole, otherwise they end up getting stuck to the baking sheet. Arrange tomatoes on a baking sheet. You could also add some sliced yellow onion, if you like that sort of thing, but I have a toddler that hates onions, and I'm not a huge fan either. Add crushed garlic (you could also use whole cloves if that's what you have on hand), 1/2 cup olive oil, salt and pepper and toss. Bake in a 450 oven for 25-30 minutes until they are carmelized. (If tomato skins bother you, you could probably remove them after waiting a bit, but I found that most of the skins got blended into the soup anyway).

Roasted Tomatoes! It really is a shame the internet isn't scratch n sniff. Cuz...damn. It smelled awesome!

Put tomatoes and their juices into a stockpot with butter and herbs. Just about cover the mixture with chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 30-40 minutes. Use your stick blender to make it smooth. You could add cream to it at the end, but it was pretty creamy all on its own, but its up to you! Next time, I might add a little splash of red wine to give it a little something extra, but it was great as it was. Maybe a little shaved parmesan on top would be good too!

And what does perfectly with tomato soup? Grilled cheese, of course! We had some left over bread from the other day, so we got out the panini press (one of my best uses of $20 at target ever) and grilled up some sandwiches with some yummy sage cheddar cheese we had bought at the farmers market a while back with some tomato slices. And voila! Perfect comfort meal.

Now the real test. Would the picky toddler eat it? Thankfully yes!

Thanks for the soup mama!