Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Fresh Tomato Soup



So we have tomatoes getting ripe on the vine. I'll be freezing them soon as we will have to many ripe to eat. 
I did make some tomato soup last week, and Sunday for Skip to try. The recipe called for 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons flour. This was used to thicken the soup. Well I wanted to find another way to thicken it up without the use of butter and flour. I surfed the recipes on the web and found there were several ways to do this. One was to use cornstarch, but I didn't have any in the house, and I wasn't about to run to the grocery store (the grocery store is not my favorite place to go)
The second way was to use pureed vegetables. Sweet potatoes were sugested, but I didn't have those either (which was a shock to me as I always have these on hand) 
Another way was to use potatoes. Well of course I had those on hand, but didn't want to use them because of the carb factor. 
I did finally find something to use that I had....carrots! I thought perfect! Carrots go well with tomatoes. So I steamed 3 large ones and mashed them up then used the blender to mash them more ( I really need a food processor...one of these days)
So it came out very good. Here is the recipe just in case you have a ton of fresh maters in your garden.

4 cups fresh tomatoes cut in fourths. No need to peel or seed them as they will get strained in the end. 
2 cups chicken broth
1 slice onion
4 whole cloves
1 tsp sugar (recipe called for 2 tsp but one is enough I'm thinking next time to cut it down to 1/2 tsp)

Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer 20 minutes. 

If you plan to use the carrots get them ready by either steaming or by boiling, then puree them.

Strain the tomatoes. I just get another pot and put my strainer on top of that then pour them in. Add the carrots to the tomatoes, over low heat for additional 5 minutes or so. Then just enjoy your soup! 

If you would rather use the butter and flour to thicken use 2 tablespoons butter and melt in pot. Add 2 tablespoons flour and whisk over medium high heat till the flour browns. Add spoonful of the hot strained tomatoes and whisk making sure there are no lumps then add the remaining tomatoes.

Happy eating, and stamping trails
Karen

2 comments:

Tania said...

Karen, that looks like a version of tomato soup even I would like! Thanks for sharing. If I did want to use potatoes with the carrots, or just potatoes, would I prep them the same way as the carrots? And how many?

Krafting Karen said...

I used 3 large carrots with the batch I just made. Not sure about mixing potatoes with the carrots. If you do try it that way let me know how it came out. If you are going to just use potatoes to thicken the soup I would use one medium size.