The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Cream of Roasted Tomato Soup—With Too Much Flavor

My son waiting for his mac and cheese

Here’s THE LIST of food my 12-year-old will eat:

• Mac and cheese (the kind from a box)

• Hamburger with ketchup ONLY (he won’t eat turkey burger)

• Cheese pizza (must be homemade)

• Pork potstickers (ONLY from one particular Japanese restaurant)

 

That is his entire food repetoire. His list hasn’t changed for about nine years. He uses all sorts of excuses to describe why all the other food in the world just doesn’t work for him. Like:

 

“It’s too salty.”

“It’s too sweet.”

“It’s tastes weird.”

“It’s too hard.”

“It’s mushy.”

“That’s gross.”

“It makes my nose itch.”

“It makes my lips tingle.”

“It makes me fart.”

“It makes me burp.”

“It hurts my tongue.”

 

Whatever.

 

I gave up a long time ago.

Well, that’s not true, it just doesn’t bother me the way it used to.

 

So I made this killer tomato soup the other day, what with the end of tomato season and all and with tomatoes coming out my hoohaa.

 

I served my son a bowl and this was his critique:

“Mom, this soup is really good, and I would eat it, but it just has too much flavor.”

 

Just shoot me.

 

Cream of Roasted Tomato Soup—With Too Much Flavor

3 T olive oil

1-2  small/medium white onions

1-carrots peeled chopped

2-3 cloves garlic - minced

Handful basil - julienned

3 cups homemade tomato sauce

1 cup roasted small tomatoes (I used pear tomatoes)

course salt

2 cups chicken stock

½ – ¾ cup half and half

Sauté onions and carrots until tender

Add minced garlic and sauté for 1 minute (don’t let it brown or burn)

Add the tomato sauce, the roasted tomatoes, the basil and the chicken stock.

Cook over medium/low heat stirring frequently until carrots are

very tender.

When everything is cooked through, use an immersion blender to make the soup smooth.

Then add the half and half, warm it back up add the salt to taste Serve it with a sprig of basil floating on top. 

Here is the part where I take a picture of the soup and make it look delicious. But I forgot to take the picture and we ate the soup so here's a different photo:

 

BTW Gerard Butler is filming a movie in Santa Cruz and I'm looking for him so if you know someone who knows him, tell him I make great tomato soup.

My kids (well at least one of them) like to eat my soup with these cheesy biscuits that I make but you could serve it with any kind of cheesy bread.

Tim the Tomato Salad Recipe: Faster to make than to eat

A friend once said “If it takes longer to make it than it does to eat, it, than I don’t bother to make it.” 

I was talking to my tomato friend Tim, (that’s him with the big nose in the photo) about tomatoes and recipes.

Tim the tomato.

He suggested this very simple salad—one I’ve been making daily, and will probably continue to eat every day until I run out of fresh garden tomatoes:

Ingredients:

Fresh peeled tomatoes, between 2-4 depending on the size (Use whatever you have. They’re all good fresh.)

A quarter cup of goat cheese

1 tablespoon strawberry balsamic vinegar

Coarse salt to taste, (I use about ½ teaspoon)

Directions:

Peel tomatoes and cut into bite-size pieces.

Crumble goat cheese.

Combine all ingredients in bowl.

Eat.

Shortly after I wrote down this recipe, I stabbed Tim, cut him up, skinned him, and ate him with the rest of the above ingredients. That is his nose on the top of the salad.

Tim's nose in the salad.

He was very tasty.