Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Tomato Basil Soup

It's supposed to rain here tomorrow (probably the last time until November), so I'm planning on saying hasta to rainy days with one of my favorite soups. It's actually tragic that soups are more wintery foods because they are one of my favorite food genres. I HEART SOUP!

Tomato Basil Soup

3 c. canned tomatoes with juice
1/4 c olive oil
1 c finely diced celery
1 c finely diced onion
1 c finely diced carrots
4 TBS fresh or 1 TBS dried basil
1 TBS fresh or 1 tsp dried oregano
1-2 bay leaves
4 c chicken broth
2 TBS butter
1/2 c flour
2 c half and half (I use skim milk!!)
1 c Parmesan cheese
1 tsp salt
1/4-1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Heat oil and saute celery, onion, carrot for 5 mins. Add herbs and bay. Add tomatoes and chicken stock. Boil. Reduce heat and simmer for ~15 mins.

In separate pot, prepare roux: melt butter, add flour and about a cup of the juices from the sauteeing soup. Cook for about 5 mins. (For some reason it's quite clumpy at this point . . . but never fear.)

Add roux back into soup. Blend with an immersion blender in the soup pot
(or in your stand-up blender, but go buy an immersion blender tomorrow!) Add parmesan, and cream/milk. Simmer 15 mins. Season to likening.
Serve with a green salad and bread. (I love to take a baguette, slice thinly, sprinkle with just a bit of olive oil and parmesan cheese and broil for a couple seconds.) DIVINE!

GOODBYE MR. RAIN! SEE YOU IN NOVEMBER~

1 comment:

Jordan said...

I am not at all surprised that you love soup, it seems, as much as I do. We had a hearty vegetable posole here the other evening and Craig, mid-spoonful, said, "I'm sweating". I guess hot soup is not the meal du jour when the temperature IN YOUR HOUSE is 89 degrees!!!!! It really was! It is so expensive to run the AC, we've been holding off. Needless to say, it is blasting now and I am the only one eating leftover posole!