Sunday, August 16, 2009

Roasted Tomato and Garlic Soup

I am back!!! The lovely and long hiatus in this blog has been due to my preparing for and taking the examination required to practice in my chosen profession. Now that I have finished, I am back to cooking and blogging these recipes.

Take note: There will be some changes coming to this blog. First, I realized I am FAR too bored with making recipes out of one cookbook. As much as I love "How to Cook Everything," and will still make many recipes from that awesome book, I really need the flexibility to pull recipes from everywhere and to blog about them. Second, Awesome Sauce will be playing a more active role and will be blogging some of his own recipes. Finally, I want to blog about my experiences with these recipes, not just the recipes themselves. I want to include more of why I made them, my motivations for choosing that recipe and any fun experiences I have while making these recipes. Sometimes, they will be made just so I can use a particular ingredient. Sometimes I just have a craving. Other times I am simply ready to challenge myself. Since this blog is primarily for myself and Awesome Sauce, remembering all of these experiences and tying them to a recipe creates a diary of sorts. One where we can open up a page any day and enjoy the simple pleasures of sight, smell and taste to take us back to a memorable weekend or a special dinner.

So on to today's recipe: Roasted Tomato and Garlic Soup

To start out: I HATED tomatoes and tomato products as a kid. Actually, that's not quite true. As it has been told to me by my family, I loved my Mom-mom's spaghetti and marinara as a very young child. Then one day I tried "grownup spaghetti" with onions and peppers. Something that today would likely make me salivate turned me from tomatoes for years. I would eat my spaghetti with butter and my pizza white. I loathed ketchup and could never enjoy a delicious Caprese salad. Recently, i have begun to look at fresh, delicious tomatoes in a new light. First, I started with small bites in salsa. I hadn't had salsa in years. In salsa tomatoes are awesome! Next, I started with pizza "light on the sauce." My love of tomatoes was beginning to come back. I now I am growing to enjoy delicious tomatoes and tomato recipes (still can't stand ketchup though...). So today, I decided to conquire a recipe I hated for years: Tomato Soup.

I was told this recipe by a friend. I have no actual measurements. First, I purchased sevan fat tomatoes from the supermarket. I placed them in a pyrex dish along with two heads of garlic with the tops chopped off. I then layed fresh basil leaves across the top of each tomato and drizzled the whole thing with olive oil, salt and pepper. I baked this for about two hours at 350 degrees. I then turned off the oven and left the tomatoes in there for several more hours. When I took out the pyrex, I placed all of the tomatoes and basil in a large pot. I took the roasted garlic out of their skins and placed them in the pot with the tomatoes. I then used my awesome immersion blender to blend the whole mess. Finally, I trained the result into a beautiful tomato soup. The extra tomato, garlic and basil is saved in the refridgerator to be stirred into marinara and used in eggplant parmesan later this week. Here are some images of the process.



Tomatoes ready to be roasted!




Close Up!




Roasted!!




Blended!




Strained.




Left-overs to be stirred into marinara for eggplant Parmesan.




Tonight's dinner! Awesome Sauce made DELICIOUS marinaded and grilled chicken breast and we placed it over romaine lettuce tossed with my homemade caesar dressing. Along with it we served the Roasted Tomato and Garlic Soup.


The soup was delicious! Junky Monkey thought it was "very good and smooth." Awesome Sauce thought it was acidic and needed seasoning, but was pretty good. I thought it was decent. It had a nice consistency, but the flavor could be improved. I think it might be time to try some other tomato soups. I was also disappointed to only get three moderate bowls of soup out of seven very large tomatoes. Perhaps I was expecting too much here?

Rating:

The Clumsy Gourmet: 6
Awesome Sauce: 6
Junky Monkey: 6