Recipes

Firstly I finely chopped one white onion and set to one side in a bowl. Then I finely chopped 3 cloves of garlic and put in the bowl with the onion. Then I took a 4 inch piece of celery and finely chopped and added to the bowl. Lastly I then chopped one medium carrot and placed this into the bowl.

I then heated two tablespoons of oil in a deep saucepan and once very hot I put all the vegetables in and fried for about ten minutes or until soft and beginning to lighten in colour. Once the vegetables were soft I stirred in one tablespoon of tomato paste ensuring all the vegetables are covered. Then I took out of the fridge five medium size tomatoes and cored them and cut into quarters and added to the saucepan with a pinch of salt, pepper and sugar. I simmered this for approx ten minutes until the tomatoes started to go mushy. Then I poured in one cup of chicken stock, a few chopped basil leaves and turned the heat up to bring it to a boil for three minutes and then put it to simmer for 20 minutes or until the tomatoes have softened completely.

I then set this to one side to cool for fifteen minutes and then blended to make nice and smooth. If you have a hand blender you can keep it in the saucepan but I had to transfer mine to a blender in stages. Once I had blended all of the tomato soup I put it through a fine sieve to take out all the skins and seeds of the tomatoes. You can always skin and de-seed the tomatoes to begin with but I find this quicker and easier and it’s always best to put the final mixture through a sieve anyway. Once I had sieved the soup I placed it back in the saucepan and onto the heat to heat through and added a knob of butter right at the end once it’s come to a boil. At this stage you could always stir in a little cream but all I had was some sour cream so I stirred in a good heaped tablespoon of sour cream just before serving. I then poured into a bowl and garnished with a leaf of parsley and served with some black bread.