Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Labbits Like: Farm Fresh Tomato Soup


What to do with a mountain of fresh tomatoes from the farm? You could climb on top and proclaim yourself king! 

You could build yourself a tomato fort.


The best thing to do with fresh tomatoes, is to make tomato soup. If that's too boring for you, you can make it fun by adding in some alphabet pasta. This soup is tasty because of the quality of the tomatoes. Treat yourself to some heirloom tomatoes, or a variety of fresh, ripe tomatoes from your own garden or the local farmer's market. Grocery store tomatoes that had been picked weeks before ripening and shipped across the country just won't taste as good. Print the recipe here.


Fresh Tomato Soup (with alphabet pasta)
Ingredients:
4 cups chopped, fresh tomatoes 
1 small onion, chopped
1 or 2 cloves of garlic
2 cups low sodium vegetable broth
1 fresh bay leaf
2 Tbsp butter 
2 Tbsp all purpose flour
Sugar, salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup Alphabet pasta (optional)

Alphabet pasta makes soup more fun to eat!
Preparation: 
Place the tomatoes, onion, garlic, veggie broth and bay leaf in a large pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and allow to boil gently for about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and discard the bay leaf.
Using an immersion blender or food processor, blend the entire soup until nice and smooth.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, bring some salted water to a boil and cook the alphabet pasta according to the instructions on the package. The pasta will be added to the soup, so don't overcook it, or it will be too mushy. Allow to drain in a colander.

Using the now empty small saucepan from the pasta, melt the butter and whisk in flour to form a roux. Cook until the roux is a light brown color, then whisk in some soup until the roux is smooth and not lumpy. Mix the roux in with the rest of the soup and add the pasta.

Add enough sugar to cut the acidity of the tomatoes but not enough to make the soup sweet. Then, add salt and pepper to taste. 

Serve while hot with some crackers on the side. Enjoy!

Serves: 4 labbits

2 comments:

  1. Mmmmm...I think I might make mine with milk instead of chicken broth though, to make a nice creamy soup. So. Many. Tomatoes. And then night temps below freezing from tonight through Sunday: debating whether to cover tomatoes, dig them up and bring them indoors, or just call it quits and let mother nature win.

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    1. I made the conscious decision not to put in milk or cream because I knew I was putting in the pasta...but believe me...I LOOOOOOVE me some creamy soups. This was so delicious. Nick asked me what I put in it, and I said, "tomatoes!" He said, "but what herbs or spices?" "None!" I didn't want this to taste like pasta sauce. :) So I went with the bay leaf, and honestly, I don't know if that did anything for it. It was all in the tomatoes.

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