Creamy Roasted Tomato Soup

After a few very busy weeks of visiting grad schools I’m back with a simple recipe for a delicious homemade tomato soup.  While I’m very disappointed with the groundhog for lying to me in his prediction of an early Spring (my front yard is currently covered in snow) I’ll take the cold weather as an excuse to make some nice creamy soup.

I had never made tomato soup from scratch before but we had a ton of tomatoes and I decided to give a try, it was super easy and VERY delicious,  I recommend you try it yourself sometime.

First put the tomatoes on a baking sheet, sprinkle with some olive oil, salt, and pepper, and toss to coat, then put them in the oven to roast.

Take them out after they’ve popped and look like this:

Cook some onion and garlic in a pan, then add the roasted tomatoes.

Add in some basil, oregano, parsley, tarragon, and a bay leaf and let it simmer for a bit.

Remove the bay leaf, turn off the heat, stir in the milk.

Use an immersion blender (I got one for Christmas and this was the first time I used it, it made things super easy, but you can always transfer the soup to a regular blender if you don’t have one) to puree the soup to the consistency you want, I like mine to still have chunks of tomato.

Finally, enjoy!  The soup is delicious alone but also goes great with sour cream and the traditional grilled cheese or quesadillas.

I had mine with a quesadilla and some sour cream, which was very yummy!

Recipe

Creamy Roasted Tomato Soup

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 pound cherry tomatoes

extra virgin olive oil

salt & pepper

1 small onion – chopped

2 cloves garlic – grated

1 bay leaf

2 tablespoons dried basil

1 teaspoon dried parsley

1 teaspoon dried tarragon

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 cup milk or cream

sour cream for serving (optional)

– Preheat oven to 400 °F

– Place tomatoes on a baking sheet, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle with salt & pepper, and toss to coat.  Roast at 400 °F for 30 min. or until tomatoes burst

– Cook onion and garlic in olive oil over medium-high heat until translucent and tender (about 5 minutes)

– Add the tomatoes (and juices from the baking sheet), bay leaf, and dried spices to the pan, stir

– Simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally

– Turn off the heat, remove the bay leaf and add milk

– Puree with an immersion blender or transfer to a regular blender until desired consistency is reached

– Serve, garnishing with sour cream if desired