Recipe: Roasted Tomato Soup

Oh, the big box of tomato saga continues!  We seeded, roasted and froze the vast majority for later use.  And, guess what?!?  This is one of those later uses!

My inspiration recipe was Ina Garten's Roasted Tomato Basil Soup.  I'm sure it's perfectly delicious as-is but the local eating challenge means no canned plum tomatoes and I don't have any chicken or vegetable stock made yet.  Plus, she's using an alarming amount of oil in that recipe! Thus, I used fresh tomatoes and the juice of the roasted tomatoes instead of canned and water instead of stock.  Because I was using fresh tomatoes, I also mixed up the cooking steps.  And, in the end, it tasted so good with minimal basil, I decided to leave it as is.  Oh, and I don't have a food mill.  In short, at the end of the day, my version is probably nothing like Ina's. (Don't you hate it when the comments on online recipes are like "This recipe was fabulous!  I changed everything about it though.  It's a keeper!"  I do.)

Here's my version:

Ingredients
4 Tbsp olive oil, divided
3 lbs slicing/non-paste tomatoes, seeded, quartered. Reserve juice/seeds
2 large slicing tomatoes, chopped
1.5 onions, sliced thin
6 cloves of garlic
1/4 tsp of crushed red pepper flakes (or to taste)
1/4 c basil
3 sprigs fresh thyme
4 c water
salt & pepper




Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400*F. Arrange the 3 lbs of seeded tomatoes on a baking sheet.  Drizzle with 1 Tbsp of olive oil, salt & pepper.  Roast for 45 minutes.  Meanwhile, put chopped tomatoes, basil, reserved juice & salt/pepper in a bowl. Set aside.  (You can do this step in advance.)

2. In a large saucepan, add 3 Tbsp of olive oil, onions, garlic and crushed red pepper.  Saute until onions are brown around the edges, about 10 minutes.

3. Add chopped tomatoes mixture to the onions and cook until the liquid reduces by half or until dragging a spoon across the bottom of the pan leaves a channel (like with risotto).  Taste for seasoning & adjust if necessary.

4. Add roasted tomatoes, any juices from roasting, thyme sprigs and water to pan.  Cook for 40 minutes.


5. Fish out the thyme sprigs.  Use immersion blender (or food processor or blender) to puree soup.  Taste for seasoning.  If you want something smoother, you can pour through a fine-mesh sieve.