a few weeks ago, kevin’s grandparents gave us 3 gallon sized ziplock bags filled with frozen tomatoes from their backyard. around that time we also bought a basil plant from Trader Joe’s (i named him Gilbert). with the weather cooling down, i figured it was time to make some roasted tomato basil soup!
(recipe adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod)
Ingredients:
- 3 pounds (or enough to fill a 9x13x2 deep rectangular baking pan) Roma tomatoes, cut in half lengthwise
- olive oil
- salt & pepper
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 5 cloves of garlic, minced
- red pepper flakes
- 4 cup vegetable broth
- 1 cup freshly chopped basil
Directions:
1). Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spread the tomatoes on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Season with salt & pepper and roast for about 45 minutes.
2). In a large stockpot, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until tender, about 2-3 minutes. Stir in the garlic and red pepper flakes (as much or as little as you would like). Cook for another 2-3 minutes. Add the fresh basil and vegetable broth (*our tomatoes were frozen first and then defrosted to make this soup. when they were defrosted, they yielded a lot of natural liquid from the tomatoes. so we strained the tomatoes before roasting them and then used the “tomato juice” instead of the broth for step 2).
3) Stir in the oven roasted tomatoes. Cook for about 30 minutes over medium-low heat with the lid off.
4). Use an immersion blender to puree the soup in the stockpot, or transfer soup to a food processor or blender to blend. The soup should be smooth, with a few tomato chunks. Season with salt & pepper and red pepper flakes, to taste, and serve warm.
5) Enjoy!
of course we ate these with grilled cheese sandwiches. the meal was delicious! it was also suuper easy to make….one of those “great for multitasking/doing something else while it cooks” kinda meals. i actually made it in the morning before heading off to work, which made the evening super chill. the 45 min roasting time was the perfect amount of time to go for a run. i chopped the onions and garlic before running so when i got back i threw everything together in the pot (which was just the right amount of time i needed to cool down from my run) and then i went and showered and got ready during the 30 min that the soup was cooking down. it was like clockwork!
alice in cook-ING land 