Off-The-Vine Tomato Soup

Hello. My name is Cimeron and I’m a tomato addict. I ignored all the warning signs, like when I planted 18 tomatoes in my garden last spring. I convinced myself that it was normal and declared it would be a fun challenge to make use of all the tomatoes once harvest time rolled around. Little did I know that I’d have pounds and pounds and POUNDS of tasty, delectable tomatoes. John and I are utterly drunk on tomatoes! Perhaps it’s wrong to be addicted to garden-fresh tomatoes, but it tastes so right!

Even if it’s not raining tomatoes in your yard, you can still head to the farmer’s market and pick up some delicious tomatoes that are bursting with summer-fresh flavor. While my favorite way to eat them is raw so we can taste all their tangy, sweet, juicy goodness, this vibrant soup also highlights the bright, fresh flavor of ripe tomatoes. It’s so good that John always asks for seconds, and our friends request it frequently. There are some interesting secret ingredients that help the tomato flavor pop even more: ginger, orange zest and a hint of clove. Trust me on this: this is a mouth-wateringly good soup.

So get out to your garden and pick some fresh tomatoes, or pick up some vine-ripened flavor-bombs at your farmer’s market and prepare to feel your taste buds dance for joy!

Cimeron’s Off-the-Vine Tomato Soup

Serves: 4-6 as a meal, or 8 as a starter
From vine to table: about 30 minutes

3 tbsp olive oil
2 yellow onions, diced
18 mid-sized tomatoes (between golf ball and baseball size) or 13 big suckers, chopped up
2 tbsp grated ginger (fresh ginger, peeled)
3.5 tbsp grated orange peel
A pinch of ground cloves
A big handful of fresh basil, chopped very finely
A handful of croutons

In a big pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Sauté the onions until they’re see-through, which takes about 8 minutes or so. Add the orange peel, ginger and cloves, stirring/cooking for 2 minutes to release the fragrance and flavor of the additions. Then reduce heat to medium, toss in the tomatoes and cook – uncovered – until the tomatoes have broken down, which can take about 15-20 minutes. Be sure to stir them every now and then so they don’t stick to the bottom and burn. Turn off the heat and then with a stick blender, puree the soup. You could also use a blender or food processor, but since I hate to clean, I like to just put the stick blender right in the pot and go to town on it.  Season the soup with salt (preferably smoked sea salt if you have it) and pepper.  Serve the soup hot with some fresh basil on top and a couple of croutons. Enjoy!

 

Tags: , , , , , ,

Categories: Main dish, Recipes, Starters and sides

Author:Cimeron

Cimeron Morrissey is an award-winning magazine writer who writes about her passions, which include travel, water sports, animal rescue and food.

Operation Carnivore Conversion

This is Operation Carnivore Conversion, an ambitious and potentially hazardous project to transform my meat-loving husband into a vegetarian. Recognizing that his diet was shared by Tyrannosauruses but not by humans who live very long, he has decided - reluctantly - to try to dramatically reduce his consumption of animal-based foods. The success of this project relies on my ability to serve inventive and tasty meals that would satisfy even a femur-gnawing caveman (and to prepare them in less than 30 minutes since I don't have much time). This is a high-risk endeavor. If my husband feels deprived or underwhelmed, he will see my arms as snack-shaped objects and/or whine me to death. Failure is not an option. Oh boy, here we go!

7 Comments on “Off-The-Vine Tomato Soup”

  1. August 16, 2012 at 7:49 pm #

    Hello, I am addicted to basil…..maybe we should get together and share our bounty of goods!! LOL! I have been making pesto like CRAZY that would be perfect with your tomatoes!!

  2. Cimeron
    August 17, 2012 at 12:37 am #

    That sounds like a plan, Kitchen Inventions!! I am addicted to basil as well and just whipped up an insane batch of oil-free pesto that simply rocks with little sungold tomatoes. Do you have an awesome pesto recipe? I always love to try new ones, so if you’d like to share, please do! With your love of basil, I’m willing to bet that your pesto recipe is out of this world.

    • August 17, 2012 at 3:43 pm #

      You’ll laugh at this….I really don’t USE a true recipe…just use whatever is on hand. Parsley instead of basil come winter time; walnuts instead of pine nuts cause they’ve gotten so expensive….tomatoes in the mix is always great in summer time…

  3. Cimeron
    August 17, 2012 at 3:47 pm #

    Ooo, tomatoes *inside* the pesto mix? That’s music to my ears! I must try that today!!

  4. Lisa Cook
    September 7, 2012 at 2:57 am #

    After seeing you I made the soup so yummy and easy. Thanks for the recipe.

    • Cimeron
      September 7, 2012 at 6:20 pm #

      So great to see you the other day, and thanks for that delicious lunch! I’m really happy you liked the soup recipe. It’s pretty much perfect for fresh vine-ripe tomatoes, isn’t it? I can’t get enough of the soup since it has that gorgeous, unmistakable warmth of the sun just bursting through the tomatoes.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: