Tomato Soup

I love tomato soup, but the stuff in a can just doesn’t do it for me anymore, and I had no idea where to start with homemade. How would it not just taste like spaghetti sauce?

I found a trio of recipes in Mollie Katzen’s Enchanted Broccoli Forest, and made two of them this weekend.

#1: bay, celery seed, cloves, thickened w/ flour
#2: rosemary, basil, w/ cream cheese
#3: dill, basil and thyme, thickened with potato

I made #1 and #3 first, and then a triple batch of the winner: #3. It’s a little spicy but not at all reminscent of pasta sauce, and I immediately craved grilled cheese sandwiches when I tasted it.

Melt 3T butter or olive oil in a cast iron Dutch oven. Add 3c. onion, quartered and thinly sliced. Add 4 bay leaves and spices: 1/2 T salt, 1/2 T celery seed, and 2t cloves. Watch the heat w/ the cast iron, so that the onions don’t burn. Whisk in 5T flour and cook for a few minutes. This keeps the soup from tasting like flour.

Open three 28-oz cans of whole tomatoes, pour off a bit of liquid, and puree with a stick blender. Add to Dutch oven, mix in, and add 3T honey. Stir well to remove any bits of onion from the bottom. Let cook for about an hour.