Tomato cream soup
Tomatoes are very healthy thanks to the lycopene, but they also taste amazing when you cook them in a cream soup with a pinch of red pepper and garlic. And herbs, croutons, bread rolls or literally anything you would ever want to put in a cream soup, it's so versatile. And because it's summer time now, you can even let it chill and serve it cold. How cool is that?
Step #1: Prepare ingredients
To prepare about 2-3 plates of the soup, you will need:
- 2 cans of tomatoes (best whole, but ditched should also work),
- 2 teaspoons of olive oil,
- 2 teaspoons of red (sweet) pepper,
- a pinch of salt,
- a pinch of pepper,
- teaspoon of dried or chopped garlic,
- dried or fresh herbs,
- appropriate amount of beef bouillon cubes (for 1 litre most of the time you will need two),
- cream to taste and decoration (you will need it for decorative swirl and it really enhances the taste).
You can also prepare bread rolls that come in a pre-made tube, you can buy them in most grocery shops across Europe and United States.
Step #2: Prepare utensils
You will need a heavy-bottomed pot with a lid (around 2 litres should do fine), hand mixer and baking sheet if you plan to bake bread rolls.
Step #3: Cook the soup (10 minutes)
Set your pot on medium heat and put your tomatoes inside to start the cooking process. For each can of tomatoes add another half of water, then add appropriate amount of bouillon (in my case it's usually around 1 litre, so I add two cubes, each for 500ml of soup).
Add the olive oil and let it all cook until tomatoes start being tender and soft. They might change colour to intense red, which is an indication that they are properly cooked through.
Step #4: Mix the soup (3 minutes)
Add spices: sweet red pepper, garlic, black pepper, and salt.
Then simply mix everything until smooth with your hand mixer. Thanks to the olive oil, the soup will change colour to bright orange-red, so don't worry.
Step #5: Finishing touches on the soup (1 minute)
Put herbs into the soup and stir to distribute them evenly. Turn off the heat and let the soup cool off a little, to become thicker.
You can prepare your cream. Shake it and then use spoon to create cream whirls: take a spoonful, drop a large blob in the center of the plate and using the left-over cream on the spoon draw the swirl. Creamy soup will keep the cream swirl long enough to make a good impression!
Step #6: Bake bread rolls (10 minutes)
Lay out bread roll pieces on the baking sheet and using very sharp knife make 1 or 2 incisions in each direction. This will create a playful form of the roll.
Bake, following instructions on the package, e.g. 10 minutes in 200 centigrades.
You can sprinkle your bread rolls before baking with parmesan or gran padano cheeses, or with herbs.