My sister-in-law lives on a farm and brought the kids over for trick-or-treating on Halloween, as kiddos can't really trick-or-treat between acres. Lucky for us she brought over a bunch of tomatoes they harvested before the first freeze of the year.
I wanted to freeze them so we could use them in the winter to make chili, but my husband was all about wanting to make tomato soup. Evidently have one pound of tomatoes already frozen is "more than enough" to last us for the entire winter. I found a recipe for tomato soup on Clean Cuisine's blog and then adapted it. I intended to follow the recipe more closely, but am losing my mind and can not properly read a recipe, ergo an adaptation was developed. Unfortunately losing my mind also lead this to be one of the more messy endeavors in the kitchen. I can't tell you how many times I a) tripped in the kitchen and b) spilled in the kitchen. I think more supplies ended up on the floors, counters, and stove top than anywhere else.
When we got married, my sister-in-law was adamant that we register for a handheld immersion blender. When I asked her why, she said because it is something she used all the time and we would need it to make pasta sauces. My response "pasta sauce comes in a jar." She then suggested we would need it to make soup. My response "soup comes in a can, or sometimes in a plasticized cardboard carton." She then gave up, worrying I'm sure about how her brother was going to eat with me in the kitchen. Fast forward 10 months and I find myself in need of an immersion blender. Since we don't have one, I felt that a great way to puree the vegetables was with the food processor. Let me reiterate that I am apparently loosing my mind. I didn't notice that the food processor has a "do not fill with liquids beyond this line" line, which was really going to work out great considering I was trying to puree these vegetables into liquid. Needless to say, there was leakage. A LOT OF LEAKAGE. And I had to move everything rapidly to the blender while trying to prevent drips of vegetable stuff from staining everything everywhere.
The farm fresh tomatoes were so red and juicy! Lovely!
1. Bring a large stock pot of water to boil. Add tomatoes to boiling water until skins start to crack (about 3-4 minutes). Remove tomatoes and cool.
2. After tomatoes cool, remove peels and chop and de-seed. I found that cutting the tomatoes in half, then each half into thirds made for a simple de-seeding process. Set aside.
3. Heat olive oil in sauce pan over medium-high heat.
4. Add garlic, onions and celery. Saute until softened, about 4-5 minutes.
5. Add carrots and peppers and saute for about 5-7 minutes, until all vegetables are soft.
6. Add tomatoes. Put in blender and puree.
7. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Simmer for 45 minutes.
8. Serve with a Gruyere grilled cheese. Yum!
File this one under feeble attempts at cooking ....
Overall, this was delicious. The texture weirded me out a bit (but I also have a fear of JELL-O because it's unnatural for food to move like that), but other than that it was a hit!