Soups for a cold day
I love homemade soup at this time of year. One of my favourites is the stuffed pepper soup. I used the hot italian sausage instead of ground beef. Do you have a favourite soup you like to make? ...
Forum Discussion
Noticed I've a few jars of home canned tomatoes on hand that I'd prefer to use before the summer canning starts again. Ipso facto, time to make 1 gallon (portioned in quart and 1/2 gal.measures)of cream of tomato soup base. This time around I added basil as well as thyme. No dairy will be added until I actually heat the soup up for eating. I find that many products with dairy added don't freeze very well.I posted this on another site I frequent thus explaining any formatting weirdness.
Cream of Tomato Soup made from Leftovers
So yea many of ya know that this is a traditional bulk cooking time of year for me. The bad side to that is the fridge is left w/ lil dribs and drabs o' ingredients waiting to gain a coat o fur.
Decided to be proactive this time out and use em up.
Start up
Ingredients
a few sprigs of thyme
1 small garlic clove, minced
1/4 cup of onion, chopped
1 bay leaf
a lil swirl of olive oil
approx. 1/4 can remainder of 28 ozs of crushed tomatoes
a handful of minced leek tops
2/3 cup of chicken broth or chicken vegetable soup.
1/2-1/3 cup buttermilk, scalded
Saute the first 4 ingredients in the oil using medium heat; you want the onions to be translucent but have no additional colour:
Add the crushed tomatoes and the broth or leftover soup and simmer until it's reduced in half.
Puree w/ immersion blender or just run it through a fine bladed food mill. Using the food mill? Then discard any solids and return liquid to pot. Bring liquid back to a simmer then remove from heat.
While tomato mixture is re heating, take 1 heel of bread (whole wheat in this case), brush with olive oil or soft butter on both sides, cut into 6 strips, and cover with Parmesan or Asiago or Romano shredded or grated cheese and place in oven (or toaster oven) at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes or until cheese has melted.
Add scalded buttermilk to pot beating it in slowly. Place 2 pieces of the toasted bread sticks in soup and serve.
This yielded 3 cutesy lil cups of soup which was fine as a meal starter on a wintry day. Want more? Just start with a full can of tomatoes and scale the rest of the ingredients up. I used buttermilk because it was languishing in the fridge but am confident milk/sour cream/creme fraiche/ heavy cream would work just as well. Oh and the leek tops are optional.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparkle Plenty View Post
Yummm...I love tomato soup. I'm think using the canned fire roasted tomatoes would be good in that. Using the heel really cut down on toasting the bread time and half the work is done! Smart.
I had a can of fire roasted tomatoes and the temptation to open a new can was strong but but I resisted;).
Bet some fresh basil would have been nice as well. Hellooooo...if I hadn't used the heel the man would have thrown it in the garbage or it would have remained until it became a penicillin project; yanno I hate waste, LOL.
Oh and the whole process, from raw food stuff to soup in the bowl, took about 30 minutes!
Under normal circumstances I only have a tube of tomato paste and cans of whole peeled and fire roasted tomatoes. Howevah only crushed were on sale and I decided "Ohhhh what the hay.....just get it". Won't make that mistake again because I've gotten used to controlling the size w/ the whole versions.
Cream of Tomato Soup made from Leftovers
So yea many of ya know that this is a traditional bulk cooking time of year for me. The bad side to that is the fridge is left w/ lil dribs and drabs o' ingredients waiting to gain a coat o fur.
Decided to be proactive this time out and use em up.
Start up
Ingredients
a few sprigs of thyme
1 small garlic clove, minced
1/4 cup of onion, chopped
1 bay leaf
a lil swirl of olive oil
approx. 1/4 can remainder of 28 ozs of crushed tomatoes
a handful of minced leek tops
2/3 cup of chicken broth or chicken vegetable soup.
1/2-1/3 cup buttermilk, scalded
Saute the first 4 ingredients in the oil using medium heat; you want the onions to be translucent but have no additional colour:
Add the crushed tomatoes and the broth or leftover soup and simmer until it's reduced in half.
Puree w/ immersion blender or just run it through a fine bladed food mill. Using the food mill? Then discard any solids and return liquid to pot. Bring liquid back to a simmer then remove from heat.
While tomato mixture is re heating, take 1 heel of bread (whole wheat in this case), brush with olive oil or soft butter on both sides, cut into 6 strips, and cover with Parmesan or Asiago or Romano shredded or grated cheese and place in oven (or toaster oven) at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes or until cheese has melted.
Add scalded buttermilk to pot beating it in slowly. Place 2 pieces of the toasted bread sticks in soup and serve.
This yielded 3 cutesy lil cups of soup which was fine as a meal starter on a wintry day. Want more? Just start with a full can of tomatoes and scale the rest of the ingredients up. I used buttermilk because it was languishing in the fridge but am confident milk/sour cream/creme fraiche/ heavy cream would work just as well. Oh and the leek tops are optional.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparkle Plenty View Post
Yummm...I love tomato soup. I'm think using the canned fire roasted tomatoes would be good in that. Using the heel really cut down on toasting the bread time and half the work is done! Smart.
I had a can of fire roasted tomatoes and the temptation to open a new can was strong but but I resisted;).
Bet some fresh basil would have been nice as well. Hellooooo...if I hadn't used the heel the man would have thrown it in the garbage or it would have remained until it became a penicillin project; yanno I hate waste, LOL.
Oh and the whole process, from raw food stuff to soup in the bowl, took about 30 minutes!
Under normal circumstances I only have a tube of tomato paste and cans of whole peeled and fire roasted tomatoes. Howevah only crushed were on sale and I decided "Ohhhh what the hay.....just get it". Won't make that mistake again because I've gotten used to controlling the size w/ the whole versions.
