Go to the farm stand, pick up red ripe tomatoes and whip this up! There are no words to describe how delicious this is! Extremely easy, everything is rough chopped and thrown into a food processor!
Ingredients:
Serves 6
• 2 Tbs of olive oil
• 2 onions, roughly chopped, I used one red, one white
• 4 cloves of garlic, whole but smashed (released the essence)
• 5 large vine-ripened tomatoes, coarsely chopped
• 1 1/2 tsp of sugar
• 1 Tbs of tomato paste
• 1/4 cup packed chopped fresh basil leaves, plus more basil cut into thin strips for garnish
• 3 cups of chicken stock, (I make mine in the winter and freeze it) but store bought stock would be just fine
• 4 tsp of kosher salt
• 2 tsp of freshly ground black pepper
• dash of cayenne pepper
• 3/4 cup of half & half or heavy cream, I use half & half
• Croutons for garnish (recipe below)
Directions:
Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium-low heat. Add the onions and and saute for about 10 minutes, until very tender. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute.
Add the tomatoes, sugar, tomato paste, basil, chicken stock, salt and pepper and cayenne, stir to combine.
Bring the soup to a boil, lower the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 30 to 40 minutes until the tomatoes are very tender. Let cool down and blend it in small batches in a food processor or use an immersion blender.
Press it through a sieve and return it to the saucepan.When ready to serve, warm up the soup and add the half & half, stir to combine. Taste and add salt if needed. Serve with minced chives or more basil, cut into thin strips and of course you can’t have tomato soup without croutons!
Croutons: Place cubed bread on a baking sheet, drizzle over olive oil, salt n pepper and toss and toss with your hands. Bake 10 minutes in a 450 degree oven. Sprinkle them on that luscious soup!
