…and when you wake up on an April Monday morning to a snow covered magnolia, that’s the day.
Making tomato soup is the best simply because anything goes; simple or chunky, rice, pasta, or not, spicey, or plain. It’s all good. Tomato soup – like most soups – requires no measuring so I am all over that. Play around with what you have on hand and as long as you keep to a few constants, you will always have amazing tomato soup in as little as one hour.
Holy Crap It Snowed Tomato Soup
Start with a few veggies, but always onion. Chop, Chop, Chop. I’ve done this with white potatoes and with sweet potatoes in the past, but last night’s soup used a carrot and celery base.
Melt about a tablespoon of unsalted homemade butter (or that store bought stuff) in your soup makin’ pot, and toss in a dash of flour if you are feeling a thickened soup.
Stir, stir, stir, over medium heat, until the veggies are good and coated with the butter, and then let them settle for a few minutes, or as long as it takes you to roughly chop your tomatoes.
I always use roma tomatoes. If you have other types on hand, mix them up – plum tomatoes are great to add.
How much? It depends on how much soup you are making. I think I put in 6 chopped tomatoes. Three of us ate and there is enough left over for me to have a yummy lunch today.
Stir, stir, stir, for a few minutes, the add some broth. This part is pretty flexible depending on what type of soup you are going for. I mostly use a veggie broth or an onion broth, rarely a meat based on. Once, all I had was homemade chicken broth, so I just used water and upped the seasonings.
So, add the broth ensuring the veggies are completely covered, but be warned if you add too much liquid you will have a more liquid-y soup.
Add onion greens and garlic greens. (do it! yum!)
Cover and let simmer until all your veggies are cooked.
Use an immersion blender (if ya got one) and blend up all that goodness right in the pot, then grind in some pepper.
Add chopped fresh basil. You can add other fresh herbs at this point, but definitely the basil.
Now add a dollop of balsamic vinegar. Do it.
(Or, if you are going for a different style of tomato soup, skip the herbs and such and add some chile peppers.)
Let the soup simmer for 5-10 minutes to absorb your seasonings, but not too long.
Serve. Garnish if desired.
cybervassals 
My husband was bitter about spending all day Sunday on the lawn mower, only to wake up to 2 cms of snow yesterday too (we live about 2 hours away from Ottawa). We had soup for dinner too. Seems to make things better, doesnt it?
A good soup, like tea, makes **everything** better. :-)
Sounds deelish! But what does one do about the tomato skins?
Oh, don’t worry about the skins! They get blended in and you don’t notice they are there. The only time I skin my tomatoes is when making bulk sauce for canning. Then I use my handy-dandy tomato press which separates the skins/seeds from the good stuff, plus gives you paste/puree if you are willing to dig for it.