Roasted Tomato Soup

A basket of tomatoes has been staring at me for the last few days. I had finished making salsa, had frozen about 20 pounds and thought I still should try to make some savory home-made tomato soup. I've had a wonderful crop of Beefsteaks this year and covering the tomatoes with plastic has given us a longer growing season.  I've heard people talk about roasted tomatoes and it did not take long and I found something to do with that basket and soon my work became pleasurable and rewarding as I enjoyed cutting them into quarters and placing them on cookie sheets waiting for the end results.  The smell of tomatoes and garlic roasting were enough to send all the kids home again to test this freshly made soup.

Roasted Tomatoes

• 8 pounds tomatoes, cut into quarters or halves
• 8 garlic cloves unpeeled
• 8 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 Tbsp.sea salt
• 2 medium onions chopped
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 4 tsp sugar
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 6 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Arrange tomatoes on a large baking sheet lined with heavy duty aluminum foil. ( I used two cookie sheets)
3. Add unpeeled garlic to tomatoes.
4. Drizzle 6 Tbsp of the olive oil over the tomatoes and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
5. Roast tomatoes for 1 hour, let them cool and meanwhile peel the garlic
6. Cook onions, butter, oregano and sugar in 2 Tbsp. olive oil  in a heavy pot over medium heat.
7. Add tomatoes, garlic, stock and simmer, covered for 20 minutes.
8. Puree the soup with an immersible blender or else you can pour the soup into a regular blender and puree.
9. Puree the seeds and skin all together. You can opt to force this through a mil, but I just left it and was happy with the chunkier results.
10. Add cream, salt and pepper to taste and simmer a few minutes to reheat the milk.
11. Garnish with fresh basil or add some fresh home-made pesto.

This soup freezes well for the cool winter nights ahead and most of all, you need to know how wonderful it is to compliment any soup with  Anneliese's No Knead Bread.

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