Thursday, January 8, 2009

Tomato and Rosemary soup


Thursday 2.37pm

It is bitterly cold and dark - the middle of Winter. Christmas and New Year have been celebrated and now it is that dead period of the year, January/February, when there is nothing happening and nothing to look forward to. Or at least what there is to look forward to seems a long, long way off. You need something to cheer you up, something interesting to eat but your body does not yet have that yearning for salads that suggests Spring is close by. But what?

Well how about an intensely flavoured tomato soup made with ingredients from the store cupboard, or the modern equivalent - the supermarket, along with some sort of evergreen herb. I like Rosemary but you have to be carefull because it is quite strong and can easily overpower everything else.

- Peel and chop two red onions and a couple of cloves of garlic and set to cook very slowly in some olive oil, enough to cover the bottom of the saucepan. Leave for a good fifteen/twenty minutes.
- Add in a tin of plum tomatoes, a couple of tablespoonfuls of tomato puree, a tablespoonful of white or red wine vinegar and three quarters of a pint of half strength vegetable stock from a cube or powder.
- Leave to bubble away gently for ages - twenty minutes or more.
- Blend it smooth. You don't have to do this it is just my preference and the taste is slightly different blended to unblended.
- Reheat in the washed out saucepan adding some black pepper and salt if necessary.
-While it reheats drop in a sprig of rosemary, removing it as soon as you can just taste a hint of Rosemary in the background.

I served mine with some thin flat bread spread with butter, garlic, salt and more Rosemary leaves before baking. A brief memory of Summer in the middle of Winter like a dream that all to quickly fades.

Of course if you are in a hurry you could just open a tin of cream of tomato soup and drop in the rosemary sprig whilst warming it through, but where is the fun in that?




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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow That LOOKS YUMMMMMY!

Peter said...

Why thankyou - it was, and very easy to make!

( I am all for easy)

peter

Anonymous said...

What a lovely grown-up version of the tomato-soup-and-grilled-cheese lunches I remember from my childhood!

This recipe just might be the thing to brighten our midday table after we dig out from yet another substantial overnight snowfall...

All best of 2009 to you, Peter.

Peter said...

Strange to think of half the world being under snow when we are sitting here in a 25degree summer day!

peter

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