Tomato soup and grilled cheese. While I would gladly eat this year round it really shines in the colder months. Less is growing but all the work put into canning a tomato harvest and processing basil in spring makes the effort so worth it. Fresh and bright. Hearty and comforting. Grill up some cheese and get to dunking.

Tomatoes have a really short and early growing season here so don’t blink. The Family Garden, a local organic farm always has a bulk tomato sale where you can get 100lbs of tomatoes if you wish. He grows this very hearty slicing tomato variety that has big yields. Perfect for making Passata to be used during the winter months.

Basil grows the same way; quick and in abundance. so there is always frozen pesto in the freezer. But we know it’s not pretty once frozen so it gets used to flavor cooked dishes.

What I love about this soup is I can cook it down to thicken it up and it becomes a great sauce for dishes like chicken Parmesan. So it always gets doubled.

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

• 1/4 c butter
• 1 medium onion, rough chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 shallot, minced
• 1/2 t fennel seed
• 1/2 c dry white wine
• 4 cups tomatoes, peeled, chopped (or whole peeled plum tomatoes canned)
• 4 cups passata (canned pureed tomatoes)
• 10-12 leaves, fresh basil
• 1 sprig oregano
• 1-2 bay leaves
• 4-6 sprigs flat leaf parsley
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• *optional red pepper flakes

Steps:

1. Heat pot to medium high (hot enough to sweat vegetable but not burn the butter)
2. Add butter, vegetables, fennel seeds. You want a light brown on the onions and the fennel seeds toasted.
3. Deglaze the pan with white wine, let that cook off.
4. Add tomatoes, puree, and herbs and lightly season with salt (not fully it still needs to cook)
5. *If you have a block of Romano/parmesan or older hard rinds you can add them to the pot for an added layer of flavor.
6. Turn temp down to simmer cover with a lid and cook for about 30 min.
7. Check soup for flavor at this time. Adjust flavors using salt sweet sour bitter umami. What is out of balance. Make those adjustments.
8. Let the soup cook for about five more minutes and taste again. Once the flavor is where you want it turn off the heat and let cool down a bit.
9. Remove rinds and bay leaves. Using a Burre stick or blender you’ll want to blend but keep some texture.
10. Add cream while blending. Return to heat if too thin and let reduce a bit.
11. Garnish with any combination of fresh herbs/pesto, pine nuts, cheese, olive oil, extra red pepper flakes.

Grilled cheese can be any favorite bread and cheese combination. Really almost anything goes here.