casa de sousa: Tomato Soup To Do Die For !!!

I love tomato soup. It brings back memories from elementary school on a rainy day. I have tried many tomato soups, but then I tried this recipe Cream Of Tomato Basil Soup. After making it for the first time, my husband and I were like this is some yummy soup.

I come from a Mexican family, and in most foods, if there isn't a bit of spice or the taste of a hot pepper, then it's missing something. Second time around of making it, we had the family over for Thanksgiving, and we decided to tweak this recipe just a bit.So instead of the roasted red peppers we used roasted poblano peppers.

Ingredients

2 (28 oz) cans of whole tomatoes

(reserve juice, you might think that you have a lot, but it will be fine)

2 TB brown sugar

4 TB butter

1 small onion chopped

2 TB tomato past

2-3 TB flour

2 (15 oz) cans or one carton of chicken stock/broth

2 fresh red peppers roasted or green poblano peppers

1 cup prepared pesto

1 1/2 cups half and half

some bread for dipping. I chose rosemary bread

1. Preheat oven to 450, and/or if you have a toaster oven turn on the broiler.

(I normally turn on the broiler in my toaster oven, and roast the peppers. Once there done, I switch it to the oven option, and start the pre heat for the tomatoes.)

Began the pepper roasting process. In order to roast the peppers, my mom puts them on the stove range and lets them sit on the open fire, turning them as they get burnt. Another way of roasting them is putting them under the broiler for about 15-20 minutes. I like the broiler better, less risk of getting burn while turning them, and less mess. I just put foil on the try and put them in our oven toaster. Once there ready put them aside to let cool, and then peel the black skin off. Take the seeds out, and cut them into chunks or strips.

Green Poblano Peppers/Red Bell Peppers

2. Line a baking sheet with foil. Get your can of whole tomatoes, and drain and squeeze out seeds of tomatoes and arrange them on baking sheet. Make sure to save the juices from the whole tomatoes.

Be careful, if you squeeze too strong, you will get splattered.

Sprinkle them with brown sugar (i put extra sugar second time around). Bake until liquid is evaporated and tomatoes caramelize (about 30 min).

This picture is before they were in the oven.

3. Heat butter, onion, and tomato paste in large pot. Saute until onions soften. Add flour and cook for 1 minute. Gradually add chicken stock and reserved tomato juice. Bring to a boil. Add tomatoes and peppers and puree until smooth with an immersion blender, or remove from pot in small batches and puree in a food processor or blender. Return to pot, simmer 15 minutes. Five minutes before serving, add pesto and half and half.

First time I made this I didn't have a hand blender, so I had to puree it in batches in my blender. It was a bit messy, the cap of the blender kept popping off as soon as I would start it, and I would get splattered. So before I made it second time around, I had bought a hand blender, it worked sooo much better.