Last night I made the easiest but the TASTIEST soup I think I have ever made. That is no mean feat given I have many several soup recipes on my belt, but this one took the crouton.
It was even tastier in part given its simplicity. I kind of sat there eating it like ‘… how does it taste this good when there was so little done?’
Admittedly there is nothing groundbreaking about a tomato and pepper soup, and I’ve stunned myself that I’ve even bothered to write this, but trust I wouldn’t share it if it didn’t taste amazing.
I made enough for two people with leftovers for a work lunch, and ended up eating my work lunch stood up in the kitchen. From the Tupperware I put it in for safe keeping?! Sloppy.
Its not even a case of buying expensive ingredients, it’s the kind of recipe that has every element you look for in a soup – it’s creamy, it’s sweet, it’s salty, it’s smoky and the consistency was to die for. You could stand a cracker up in it, but give it a few seconds and it would swallow the thing whole.
And my favourite part? Nothing went on the hob once. No pans, no bubbling, no simmer – no stock! Literally just everything roasted in the oven and then blitzed in a blender to a perfect, velvet consistency.
I’m very proud of this one.
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Grab yourself 5 big old vine tomatoes (the packet stuff just won’t do) and roughly chop them. Throw them in a roasting tray.
Roughly chop an onion, throw it in. Crush two cloves of garlic, throw it in.
Take a a big jar of those slippery looking roast red peppers and roughly chop 3-4 of them and throw into the pan. It may smell quite vinegary but trust that these peppers are going to give a deluxe style richness and smokiness to the soup.
Slide a few leaves from a handful of thyme branches and add to the pan. Some salt, some pepper, some regular olive oil and slip in the oven for 35-40 minutes.
Go do some housework. Make yourself useful.
After the roasting time, empty the pans contents into a blender. Be careful because hot tomatoes have the heat of Satan in them, so use a ladle if you want to be 100% safe.
Blitz everything to a creamy soup. If you want it slightly more liquid, add a tiny splash of water a drop at a time until you get what you need but me personally, I don’t need a single splash.
Serve with some extra thyme sprinkles and a slick of extra virgin olive oil. Serve smugly and eat snuggly.
MIKEY AND THE KITCHEN. 