Day 101 / Day 9 - Basil and Tomato Soup

Back on June 25, one of the regular readers of this blog (okay, the one reader...thanks P) suggested this recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Rich-and-Creamy-Tomato-Basil-Soup/Detail.aspx

Of course, I'd been stuck because I didn't have a blender. That's changed, of course.

So, I went to the local King Kullen and bought four ripe tomatoes on the vine, a container of heavy cream, some milk, two limes, and some orange juice (don't worry, only the first two are for this recipe).

I proceeded to pick some fresh basil. The recipe calls for 14 leaves, but I picked about 20. In retrospect, I should have used a bit more.


Following the recipe's instructions, I chopped the tomatoes. I didn't bother to peel them (how the heck do you peel a tomato?). I simmered the chopped tomato in tomato juice for half an hour. Then, I put the mixture into my blender, along with the basil leaves:

Whirrr-whirrr-whirrr-whirrr.

Before you know it, I had a wonderfully pureed concoction, which I poured back into the pot. Then, I added a cup of cream and half a cup of butter (yes, you heard me right).

This is what I ended up with:

Being somewhat of a smart-aleck, I dug up a soup bowl I had that looked just like the one on the Web site, and added a little sprig of basil.

I took a few sips, and I was in heaven. It was the kind of soup that you know is soup. It's the kind of soup that you can feel going down smoothly and settles in your stomach with that warm, wonderful feeling you get on a cold winter's night. Okay, we're in the middle of a 95 degree heat wave right now, but you get the point.

The taste was phenomenal. Although one could argue that if you add a cup of heavy cream and half a cup of butter to anything, it'd taste good.

In case you're wondering why I bought milk and two limes...stay tuned to this same station tomorrow!

In other tomato news, some hope--the Golden Harvest tomato finally had one tiny little stem start to peek up through the foam in the pod...let's see if it has the steam to make it to pull-fledged plant. The other Red Heirloom is still not showing a thing :(