Someone's In The Kitchen With Dinaaaaaaah!

Tonight's dinner was homemade tomato soup. I had a boatload of tomatoes ripen all at once in the garden, plus a few other goodies, so I looked up a couple of recipes online, then basically winged it.

Tomato Basil Soup

1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
10-12 fresh basil leaves, shredded
4 cups diced tomatoes (I used a Beefsteak, 3 Roma and maybe a dozen cherry)
6 cups chicken stock
1 cup half-and-half
salt and pepper to taste

I'm all about simplicity, so I didn't peel or de-seed the tomatoes. I also grabbed a handful of shredded carrot, chopped it and called it diced.

Heat the olive oil in a soup pot, when it's shimmering add the onion and carrot. Cook for 10 minutes or so.
Add the basil leaves, tomatoes and chicken stock. Bring to a simmer and stir occasionally for 45 minutes or so.

Turn off the heat and let the soup cool for a bit, then run the soup through a blender or food processor. Do it in a couple of batches if you have to.

Back on the heat to simmer. Add the half-and-half a little at a time while stirring. Don't let the soup boil.

Taste and add salt and pepper to taste. Be careful, mine wound up on the verge of too salty!

This was gooooooooooood!!! Next time, I'm going to try heavy cream instead of half-and-half, and maybe butter instead of the olive oil. I'll also give this a try with canned tomatoes.