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

Sicky McInfectedpants Soup!

Hello friends.

Today was absolutely lovely around here, it was sunny, and in the high 50's at least. I mean, I spent most of the day inside, but when I left work it was nice out. I'm even typing this with the window open in my kitchen. In spite of all the nice weather, I am feeling crummy. So I ran a few quick errands, picked up a couple of things at the grocery store and have made my go to #1 soup for when I am feeling ill. I call it Sicky McInfectedpants soup, and it is pretty tasty, seriously easy, and good fer what ails ya. When I'm feeling unwell, I tend to crave fresher flavors, but I really love spicy/sour flavors, it wakes me up and makes me feel better just by eating it. And if you're congested, who needs Sudafed when you have spicy soup?!

I'm going to outline the simple version, and then detail how I gussy it up further. You can make it as simple or complex as you're feeling.




Sicky McInfectedpants soup
1-1.5 tsp grapeseed oil
3-4 cloves of garlic, grated
1/2 inch piece of ginger, grated
crushed red pepper flakes
32-48 oz. of stock (I used a box of Kitchen Basics unsalted chicken stock and then added 2 c. of water and one veggie boullion cube)
pinch of salt, or more as needed.
handful of grated carrot
1 scallion, thinly sliced
lime juice (1 wedge per bowl)

1. Heat up the oil in a medium pot, grating in the garlic & ginger once it starts to thin out. Add a pinch of salt and cook on medium heat until they start to get a little clumpy and very light brown.
2. Add the crushed red pepper flakes (to taste, some people like a little, some people like a lot!) and cook for 30 seconds. Turn the heat up to high and add your stock.
3. Once the soup comes up to a boil, turn down to a simmer and add the carrots.
4. Serve hot with a squeeze of lime juice, and some crackers on the side.

Now, I wasn't feeling so crummy, so I got a little fancy:

1. I added ~1 tsp of tom yam paste to the garlic and ginger. This can be found at a well stocked Asian market. It has a very high sodium content, so I used it pretty sparingly.

2. In a separate tiny pot, I toasted up the crushed red pepper flakes with whole coriander, whole black peppercorns, and whole cardamon (the little seeds, not the whole pods). I added a little bit of stock to this plus the stumps of the garlic cloves I grated into the bigger pot. I cooked this at a boil for a few minutes then poured it through a strainer into the big pot.

3. Once I brought the stock up to a boil, I ladled it into a bowl with: chopped baby spinach, finely chopped parsley, grated carrot, and topped all this with scallions. It was hot enough to cook everything.

4. I added some low sodium soy sauce because the soup was under-seasoned. This is the kind of recipe that you can add salt at the end if needed and the soup won't suffer for it. Just add it a little at a time so you don't over-do it.

5. You can add shredded chicken or chickpeas to this to make it extra filling. You can also add bulgur, just make sure to stick to only about 1/4-1/2 c. uncooked bulgur because it soaks up liquid, and you want to have soup, not mush.



See, that wasn't so hard! And it takes less than 1/2 an hour to put together, so you have plenty of time to veg on the couch and watch cartoons, or if you're me, play your new video game!