roasted tomato soup with garlic and thyme

I think this may be one of the easiest, yummiest soups ever.  It is easy to prepare (all you do is cut a few things up) and is a great way to use up a windfall of roma or san marzano tomatoes if you find yourself lucky enough to acquire one. One thing though, you HAVE to use romas or san marzanos. Regular slicers or salad tomatoes will not do. They don't have the texture, meatiness and ability to hold up to extreme heat like the paste varieties.  If you didn't grow your own maters, go to the farmers market and ask for the ugly ones because they might give you a deal. Or your local grocery store might have them on sale. I would recommend that you let them ripen up for several days on the counter if you go this route-tomatoes from the store are red thanks to a methane gas treatment but they aren't actually ripe. They do this so that the maters can hold up to shipping from say, california to ohio. Scary. Good reason to grow your own.
Ingredients:
3-4 lbs of roma or san marzano tomatoes, washed and sliced in half length wise
1/2 large white onion
large bunch of fresh thyme, or two TBS (yes TBS) of dried
2 heads of garlic (yep, whole heads)
2-3 TBS of olive oil
1 tsp salt (or to taste)
1 tsp pepper (or to taste. I love pepper so I go heavy)

Directions. Preheat your oven to 450. Wash and cut your maters and spread them out on a pan with raised sides.Your maters will release a lot of liquid which you want to keep in the pan I did not bother to skin mine because I don't mind the skins one bit and think it adds to the texture of the soup. It gets blended up anyway. But if  you have issues with the skins, go ahead and peel them but realize that this will take you much longer and you are tossing out a lot of good nutrients and fiber :) I didn't remove any seeds either. Cut up your onion into large chunks. and throw them on the pan too. You don't need to be precise as this all will be blended up.  Cut your garlic heads in half and place them on the pan. You don't need to take the time to take the skins off. When the garlic is roasted, they slip right out of the skins, which will be tossed. Throw the thyme on there too. If you are using fresh, I would recommend burying them under the maters so they don't burn in the oven. If you are using dried, just sprinkle it over everything. drizzle the olive oil over everything and give it all a good toss. Put the pan in the oven for about 45 minutes, checking to make sure it doesn't burn but you do want it to brown and darken to give it the roasty taste.

throw it all on, nothing fancy

oopsie daisy...

It should look like this when it is done.

 Zip it up in a blender or food processor. It will be very thick and a little chunky.

 It is a concentrated soup so if you plan on eating it right away add a few cups of milk or water to thin it out.  It will yield about 6 cups of concentrated soup. Garnish it with another drizzle of olive oil, heavy cream, sour cream, cheese, you name it.

You could do a variation of this with other herbs too. If you used oregano and basil, you would have a lovely pasta sauce rather than soup.

I canned mine (the concentrated soup) for dreary winter months, to give to friends and family. The san marzanos came from the dozen or so plants I grew this year.  I just love this variety because they are great for cooking and preserving. They are coming on quite heavy and I get a whole grocery bag full every other day or so. I've canned some whole tomatoes too. Need to learn how to can? Go here for some basics. Or go here for some other things to do with tomatoes.



Sorry for the lack of posts. This summer has been hot and fast. When I'm not doing something or going somewhere, I am trying to sleep or veg or look for a job. Yeah, I don't have one of those yet...

So this is what I have been up to:

New Mexico to visit my beautiful friend Whitney, Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion in March

Turned 30 and camping/ hiking in the UP (where I got so sick that I didn't know if I would either poop my pants or puke all over the place-telling myself that it happens to everyone when they hit thirty in May

Harvested 30+ lbs of  honey, Learned how to make Cold Process Soap, grew an avocado from a pit, and garden stuff in June

California, Yosemite and Sequoia National Park in July, harvested and bottled more honey.

August, improving my etsy shop, canning tomatoes, more job hunting, drying herbs for holiday gift projects, reading a good book or two, staying cool, dreaming about going back to california...

oh, and harvesting more honey. I am up to about 60 lbs and have more to go.

What summer projects do you have going on?