Tomato soup

I often have tomatoes in the house as I use them for salads, snacks for the kids, soups, stews, chopped with tortillas, food pancakes, salsa..tomatoes are good for so many things. Often, however, I also end up having tomatoes in excess. Instead of throwing them out, I cook up a soup (or use thme in stews). Recently, we had a big event where we served a tomato salad consisting of tomatoes, rocket salad, a bit of onion with a balsamico/oil dressing. We had so much left over but instead of throwing it away – I used it all in a tomato soup! It was great! Many of the ingredients were the same a those I would add to the soup anyway – I just cut back on the onions, tomatoes (of course) and balsamico.

More to say…a recipe for a good tomato soup is very useful – tasty, cheap, healthy and of course sensible in regards to avoiding food spill.

Here goes:

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil
1 chopped onion
2 cloves of garlic, diced
approximately 500 g. of tomatoes, any type will do…basically whichever you have,- red, yellow, small, big…doesn’t matter.
a lump of butter (approximately 25 g.)
1 liter of chicken or vegetable broth
A good handful of fresh basil (I tend to permanently have a pot in the house)
1 1/2 dl cream
a dash of balsamico vinegar (abt 1 tbsp or taste to your liking)
1 tsp Salt 
Pepper

Method:

Heat up the oil in a big pot, add the onion and garlic – stir fry until soft. Add chopped tomatoes and let them fry/cook with the onions for a few minutes. Add the butter. When melted – mix in the flour and cook for a few minutes. Add the broth and cook for another 15 minutes. Add the basil – including part of the stem. Blend well until smooth. Add the cream and heat up until cooking. Add salt and pepper and a bit of balsamico! 
That’s it.

Serve with good bread – and if you need something else to go with it…cook up some chicken drumsticks or other meat. Makes a nice meal…easy, cheap, food saving and healthy.

You can also freeze the soup. If I suddenly have a whole lot of tomatoes which are about to go bad but are just wrinkled and a bit old – I quickly do a soup and put it in the freezer for another day.

Happy cooking!!