Roasted Toamato and Basil Soup with Cheesy Croutons

Theres nothing better in this cold weather than a warm bowl of soup and of course croutons dont hurt either!  I love this tomato soup as the roasting in the oven brings out the flavours. The cheese from the croutons work so well with this soup.

Ingredients

2 kg Roma (Jam) Tomatoes
1/2 kg cherry or baby roma tomatoes
30 grams fresh basil
2 onions
4 cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
Aprox 1L vegetable stock (you can either use a soup powder mixed with water or make your own using this recipe.

Method

1.  Cut the tomatoes in half, place on baking pan, sprinkle with aprox 3 Tbls oil and salt.  Roast in oven preheated to 180C for 45 minutes.

Before...

...After

2.  Allow the tomatoes to cool and remove the peel from the large tomatoes.  They should peel off easily by just pinching them off.  Its not necessary to do this with the cherry tomatoes.

3.  Slice the onions into rings.  

4.  Heat a large soup pot on the stove on medium high temp. Put about 3 Tbls olive oil and saute the onions until starting to go golden.  this could take about 20 minutes.  Keep stirring to avoid burning the onions.

5.  After 15 minutes of sauteing the onions add the garlic cloves and keep stirring for the last 5 minutes.

6.  Add the tomatoes, basil salt and pepper and the stock. Bring to a boil and allow to simmer for 30-40 minutes.

7.  Remove the cloves of garlic and blend the soup.

For the Cheesy Croutons.

1.  Slice one left over ORIT's Bakery Challa

2.  Make grilled cheese sandwiches.

3.  Once ready, allow to cool for 5 minutes and slice into croutons

...And serve with your soup!

Enjoy!

xxx

Orit

Vegetable Soup Stock

Its always healthier ,not to mention tastier, to make your own soup stock than to use the store bought powders.  The best part is that its so easy!

Ingredients

3 large baby marrows sliced
3 large carrots peeled and sliced
3 large leeks sliced
3 stalks celery sliced
2 onions peeled and cut into quarters
handful mushrooms
1 turnip
handful fresh parsley
3 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
3 cloves garlic peeled and smashed to release flavours (do this by pressing the flat side of a knife over the clove and hitting once hard)


This list of ingredients is just a suggestion.  you can really use any vegetables you have lying around or leave out what you don't have.

Method

1.  Place all the ingredients in a large pot and fill with water until all the vegetables are covered.
2.  Bring to a boil and allow to simmer on medium high temp. for approximately 2 hours.
3.  Drain the vegetables keeping the liquid.
4.  The liquid left behind is the stock.  The vegetables are pretty much useless at this point.  you can eat them as is, discard or even use as compost.