I may have mentioned a few times how much I love this time of year, especially because of tomatoes.
Worried that there were only a few weeks left for me to get my fill, and last trip to Wallkill View Farm may have over done it, buying way more than we could possibly eat.
Looking for ways to use up some of the tomatoes before they got soft, I started searching for tomato soup recipes. Since I also had two poblano peppers and a bunch of basil I need to use up, I Googled – poblano, basil and tomato. Voila! My new favorite tomato soup – roasted, poblano, tomato, basil soup. I found the recipe on Ally's Kitchen and adapted it slightly to suit my tastes. Using just picked tomatoes and poblanos really made this a winner!
Ingredients
2-3 cups chicken broth, divided
1 cup fresh basil leaves, packed
1 cup fresh Italian parsley leaves, packed
1 Tbl. fresh thyme leaves
6 Tbl. olive oil, divided
3/4 cup sweet onions, chopped
2 large roasted poblanos, peeled, deseeded and chopped into medium size pieces
4-5 cups tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup concentrated tomato paste
1/2 tsp. red chili flakes
2 tsp. dried oregano
2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
¾ cup light cream
Instructions
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Put chopped poblano peppers on cookie sheet and toss with 1 tbsp of olive oil. Roast for 7 minutes, turn over peppers and roast another 7 minutes or until they are lightly charred.
Put basil, parsley, thyme, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and one cup of chicken broth into a food processor and blend and blend well as well as you can. The finer the chop the better. Set aside.
In a heavy pot (I used my cast iron) add remaining olive oil and heat. Add the poblanos and tomatoes and sauté until tomato are soft, mashing up the tomatoes as you go.
Stir in the tomato paste, chili flakes, oregano, salt and one cup of chicken broth. Reduce heat to medium low, add the baking soda, blend and cook about twenty minutes stirring occasionally.
Add the herb mixture to the tomatoes and pepper mixture. Using an Emergen blender mix until creamy. (for this step you can also put everything into the food processor instead. Just be care to cool the tomato/poblano mixture a bit first. Then put pack in the pot)
Add the cream and the remainder of the chicken broth. Cook on a low heat for another 20 minutes.
There will be some small piece of herbs and tomato skins, which I like for texture. If you want a smoother consistency you can strain.
This is a perfect soup for this time of year. Top it with garlic croutons for a little crunch or serve it aside of a grilled cheese sandwich. To make it a little more of a meal you can top it with a shrimp or I hear a dollop of burrata mozzarella goes well too.
The only thing I would change if I made it again would be to double the batch so I could have put some in the freezer for another day.
