On a cold miserable January day like today, what I really fancy is a big bowl of hot soup and some crusty bread.
This soup is a basic roasted tomato and pepper soup. There are thousands of recipes for this soup out there. This is the way i make mine.
I had to enjoy it without the crusty bread today but I will be making some low gluten spelt bread this week so I will post the recipe for that soon. The two would be perfect together.
With or without bread this makes a delicious healthy lunch that warms your cockles and provides tonnes of vitamins and nutrients. Its also really low in calories.
Here's how I did it...
Ingredients:
8 ripe plum tomatoes
2 red or orange peppers
1 white onion
2 dessertspoonfuls of olive oil
500ml chicken stock (or veg stock if your a veggi)
pinh salt and black pepper
few sprigs of thyme
Method:
Chop the tomatoes in half, the peppers into chunks and the onion into quarters. Place in a large oven proof shallow dish with the sprigs of thyme and toss with the olive oil, salt and pepper. Try to make sure the thyme is hidden underneath the tomatoes so it doesn't burn.
Roast in a medium oven for around 45 minutes. Check it and toss the veg every 15 minutes.
When the veg is soft all the way though and roasted and golden on the top, take it out of the oven. Remove the thyme and place in a large saucepan with the stock. Bring to the boil and simmer together for about 5 minutes. Then take it off the heat and blend with a hand blender until really smooth.
Taste and then add more salt and pepper if you think it needs it.
This soup is delicious just like this but you could add a dollop of creme fraiche for extra creaminess.
Another nice twist would be some good quality pesto drizzled on the top (not too much as you don't want to over power the sweet tomato flavour.
A great variation of this soup is to substitue the onion for a bulb of fennel and the black pepper for ground fennel seeds. (Fennel is my new favourite vegetable. I'm putting it in EVERYTHING at the moment). It gives the soup a delicious aniseed flavour.
I think the most important thing when making soup is to use a good quality stock. If you use a cheap stock cube your soup will usually taste like a cheap stock cube. I make my own stock whenever I have made a roast dinner using the chicken carcass, some root veg and onions, some seasoning and some herbs from the garden. Just boil it all up for around 30 mins and then strain. Pour it into old soup tubs and then freeze. Then whenever you need stock you have a supply in the freezer. It means I never have to buy stock or stock cubes and it tastes better.
To make this soup into a hearty meal, check out my spelt bread later in the week.
Labels: light, lunch, soup, wholesome