Tomato!

A couple of weeks ago some friends and I were talking about tomato soup. Remember when you were little and on snow days you would come in for lunch from sledding, and have delicious Campbell's tomato soup? I would break half of a sleeve of Premium Plus crackers into my bowl and crunch away. We were talking about how it's impossible to make a homemade version of that goodness.

On Sunday, I met up with a study buddy to practice our Inuktitut. We went to Planet Coffee in the market, where there were two things on the lunch menu: 7-grain salad, and tomato and roasted garlic soup. I had the soup. Oh. Em. Gee. Amazing! It was a light coloured soup, it clearly had other veggies in it, as it wasn't a totally pureed soup. I thought to myself, I have to try and make this at home.

So I prepared the following:

- 5 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
- 1 zucchini, peeled and chopped
- a bunch of fresh sage, leaves torn off of their sprigs
- a couple of carrots, I used the leftovers from the massive amount that came in the veggie tray that I had for dinner (sometimes I get an irresitable craving for a veggie tray, the smaller size, I can eat the whole thing, except for the carrots, there are always so many carrots!)
- 5 or six cloves of garlic
- 1 onion

I roasted the three last items listed in the oven at 350 for about half an hour with some olive oil drizzled on them:


After 30 minutes, I put them in the soup pot, with the rest of the veggies, minus the tomatoes. I added 5 sundried tomatoes to get an extra-tomato-y flavour, a litre of water and a bouillion cube. All of that stewed for about half an hour, until everything was soft. I then used the hand blender and zapped the developing deliciousness into a puree. THEN in went the chopped tomatoes and 2 cups of almond milk.

Almond milk you say? No, it doesn't taste at all like cow's milk, nor does it have the same texture. I've never compared the nutritional information, so other than the two of them being good sources of calcium, I don't know how they compare nutritionally. I don't mind milk, but I don't mind milk alternatives either. If you're a tried and true cow's milk fan, please use it in this soup, otherwise you'll be disappointed with the distinct almond milk flavour and likely throw out the whole pot.


Let the soup stew a little more, then zap it a second time, not zapping the tomatoes entirely. Add salt and pepper, and serve. My version of delicious tomato soup came out like this:

It was delicious. So delicious that I had a small bowl before going to bed. Then I sat down at the table in the kitchen at work and ate it today, instead of letting it splatter while I absent-mindedly consumed it over a forecast. It was slightly spicy thanks to the pepper, and had a rich flavour thanks to the variety of vegetables. Definitely post-sledding worthy!