Sunday Soups: Roasted Tomato Soup with Garlic Croutons

The Soup:
Great winter's day soup and very satisfying meal. Today's soup was heavy on the prep but easy on the cooking.

Before starting on the soup, I prepared the garlic croutons by cutting cubes from a round loaf of sourdough. I cooked the cubes in a pan with some melted butter and minced garlic until heated. These cooled to room temperature while I made the soup.

For the soup, I started with 3 pounds of fresh tomatoes. The recipe calls for plum tomatoes, I used a combination of Roma and Pearl since that's what I had access to. I cut them in half and de-seeded each - too bad there wasn't something I could save all that seedy liquid for, it produced a lot. Once they were ready, I marinated the tomatoes in a mixture of salt, pepper, garlic, crushed rosemary, and olive oil for 15 minutes. Once marinated, I roasted the tomatoes for almost an hour until soft and browned a bit. Then half the roasted tomatoes went in the blender with some of the chicken stock and were pureed until smooth. The pureed tomatoes went into the pot with the rest of the tomatoes and the remaining stock until heated.

The Result:
The soup was garnished with some croutons and basil. I served it with a salad of Arugula tossed with Lemon-Parmesan dressing. (Dressing: some lemon juice, olive oil, grated parmesan, salt & pepper.) A very satisfying meal!

I thought the soup was satisfying - it had a thick consistency and with the chunks of un-pureed tomatoes left in, some solid vegetables to feel more like a meal. The flavor was good but overly peppery, a result of the mixtures the tomatoes marinated in prior to roasting. My husband thought it was good, enjoyed the spice and texture and thought the rosemary was more balanced than in the Butternut squash soup of two weeks ago.