In August and early September there is always a glut of tomatoes and whilst there are lots of ways of dealing with it, freezing, chutney, sauce, etc., this is another recipe which is also good in September when the days are getting a bit cooler, it makes an excellent lunch and freezes well if you want.
Ingredients (for 4) – ours in italics
- 1 – 1.5kg tomatoes
- 1 Onion
- Carrots
- Celery
- 2 Bay leaves
- sugar
- tomato puree (optional)
- up to 1 litre vegetable stock
Method
Put a couple of tablespoons of cooking oil in a large pan, chop up the onion, carrots and celery and set them to cook for about 10 minutes until the onion is soft and slightly coloured. (The amount of carrots and celery is up to you but we put a couple of medium sized carrots and a stick of celery).
Chop up the tomatoes. We usually skin them and take out the green cores but again its up to you. The skins add flavour but can leave the soup with lots of bits in it. You could also take out the pips if you want but we don’t find that necessary.
When the tomatoes have cooked for another 10 minutes or so, add the bay leaves, half a teaspoon of sugar and some black pepper.
Then add the stock you want to make the total quantity of liquid up to about 1.5 litres so if you’ve used beefsteak tomatoes you’ll need more liquid than if you’ve used cherry tomatoes.
Look at the colour and adjust to your preference by adding some tomato puree. If you’ve used mainly red tomatoes you shouldn’t need any but if you’ve used other colours then the soup will be a different colour. We like to add a couple or three yellow tomatoes as we find it makes the colour brighter but be careful if adding green ones as it can make the soup look “sludgy”.
Simmer until everything is soft (40 minutes or so) then blend with a stick blender until its smooth. Check the taste and add salt, pepper or sugar to your liking.
Our thoughts are that the carrots add sweetness which helps stop it being too acidic. That’s it, tasty soup in about an hour and a half with not a lot of input from you.