Potato and Roasted Tomato Soup!

Hello my little crumpets and scones!

I'm going to share a delicious soup recipe with you today that is not only delicious and far superior to the canned iteration but it's also vegan and gluten free!  But truly, you won't miss the cream/butter.  I mean I'm okay with butter and I don't miss it at all in this soup! 

This recipe was definitely inspired by the "Creamy Tomato Soup" recipe from "Veganomicon" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, and I referenced that recipe for the stock/potato quantities for this recipe.  However I've been making a roasted tomato and pepper pasta sauce for a while, and I thought roasting tomatoes would translate well for soup, and boy did it ever!  Incidentally you could roast the tomato mix for only about 30 minutes and then puree that mixture for an excellent pasta sauce. 
 

Potato and Roasted Tomato Soup

2 lbs. small tomatoes (cherry or grape) washed, cut in half

4-6 cloves of garlic, smashed

2 tbs balsamic vinegar

2 tbs tomato paste

1 tbs olive oil

½ tsp paprika

¼ tsp of dried thyme & oregano

½ tsp of salt

1 tbs of olive oil

1 medium carrot, 2 ribs of celery and a medium yellow onion diced

½ tsp of salt

6 cups stock/broth

1 lb of white or Yukon gold potatoes peeled and chopped

1. Preheat oven to 500F.  Mix the tomatoes with the garlic, vinegar, tomato paste, olive oil, paprika, thyme, oregano and salt.  You want all the ingredients to be well-combined and especially for the tomato paste to be completely mixed in with the other ingredients.  It should look like this:
   
   
2. Place the whole mix in a roasting pan (lined with foil if you like easy clean up!) and roast for 50 minutes, making sure to give the pan a shake every 10 minutes or so.  You want the tomatoes to look a little bit roasted and you want the liquid to be about halfway evaporated. It looks like this after roasting:
   
   
3. While the tomatoes are cooling in a large-ish pot sautee the carrot, onion and celery in the olive oil with the salt on medium heat for about 6-7 minutes.  Once they have begun to turn translucent and brown a little add the stock, and the potatoes, as well as the tomato mixture.  Bring it up to boil and turn down to a simmer.
4. It should take about 30 minutes for the potatoes to be cooked through, and once they are cooked, puree the mixture (carefully!) in a blender or using an immersion blender if you have one.  Once the soup is completely blended, run it through a strainer back into the pot and heat for another 10 minutes and serve.
   
   

You can garnish it with fresh basil or parsley, pesto or some cheese if you’re not vegan.  This would be great with sandwiches, especially grilled cheese or a garlicky chickpea type sandwich or just some good garlic bread. 

And that's it for today, I hope you all try this soup and love it as much as I do!

Love and cupcakes,

Ms. Meghan