Fresh Tomato Soup with Tortellini

The Date: 6 December 2011

The Occasion: Soup Week! I've decided to expand my soup repertoire. I found a few recipes that looked appealing, and tried the first tonight.

The Recipe: Found it while browsing Recipe.com whose Daily Recipe email I get each day.

How it Went:
Well, I'd say it was successful, but since Campbell's has been selling condensed tomato soup for decades, it's no wonder homemade tomato soup has fallen by the wayside. It's time-consuming, messy, and expensive. Not only did I have to peel and slice up 6 large tomatoes, but the soup had to then simmer for a half hour while I wiped up tomato debris. And - I spent $10 on tomatoes! Can you believe that!? Four pounds of tomatoes at $2.50/lb. Ugh. So, yes, it went ok. And it was pretty good-tasting. But I probably won't do it again. It wasn't quite worth it.

What You Need:
onion
tomatoes
tomato sauce
chicken broth
salt
pepper
sage
milk
tortellini

Your Turn:
First, you need to peel tomatoes. I sort of accidentally doubled my recipe, so I did 6 large tomatoes. You can do 3 small ones instead. The recipe called for 2 pounds, which was estimated 6 tomatoes. My 6 tomatoes, though, were 4 pounds. Oh well. Let's do the recipe version: 2 lbs of tomatoes.

To peel, prepared a pot of boiling water and a bowl of ice cubes. Then wash the tomatoes, and cut a plus-shaped slit in the bottom of each one.

Drop one at a time into the boiling water for a couple minutes until you see the skin peeling back at the plus. Then collect it with a slotted spoon and drop it into the ice.

As it cools, peel the skin off.

As you get them peeled, cut out the stem section, then chop them up.

When you've got a big bowl full of chopped tomatoes, toss 1 onion, chopped, into some olive oil in your soup pot and let it cook until it softens.

Then add

• your tomatoes
• 1 & 1/2 C chicken broth
• 1 & 1/2 C water
• 1 8-oz can of tomato sauce
• 1 T chopped fresh sage
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper

Bring this to a boil. Then reduce heat, cover, and let simmer for 30 minutes while you clean up your red, slimy counter.

Cook one 8 oz package of Barilla dried tortellini (you'll only use half of it) according to package instructions.

After 30 minutes, it's time to puree the soup. I did this in my blender, but the recipe says you can use a food mill (whatever that is).

Now, mix in about 2-3 T of milk and half of the pasta you boiled. (I added the whole package, but remember, it was a double batch. For a normal batch of soup, I'd use half and save the rest for another meal.)

Sprinkle with some cheese, if you wish, or serve with grilled cheese sandwiches. If you want to feel extremely domestic, give this a whirl. But if all you want is tomato soup, just open a can.