Very Fresh Cream Of Tomato Soup

I had red, pink, yellow, orange, green, and yellow-green tomatoes on my counter.

I sorted them into color families.  With the yellow and orange ones I made three recipes of soup and made two more recipes with the Green shades.  This is one of my very favorite recipes.  I have been making it for years.  The original recipe came from an old garden recipe book and it freezes great so I make many batches for the freezer.  We always eat it all by Christmas.

Wash the tomatoes well. 



Core and make an X on the bottom.



Blanch very briefly and put them in an ice bath; peel them.





Cut crosswise so the seed cavities are exposed.

 The skins slip right off.  I used round heirloom tomatoes for the soups and they have a lot of seeds so I cut them in half crosswise and sqeezed out most of the seeds.  Tomato seeds are bitter so remove as many as you can.  When the vegetables are done simmering, let them cool slightly and very carefully put the soup in small portions in a blender.  Hot liquids may spurt out the top, so be careful not to fill it more than halfway.   Hold the top on the blender with a towel, just in case any liquid does spurt; then you won't get burned.




Whiz the soup up!





I like to strain out the seeds and veggie chunks that the blender missed.



Mix the melted butter and cornstarch in a separate pan and then use it to thicken the soup.



Add the remaining ingredients except for the egg yolk and the cream.  Let the soup cool and refrigerate for a few days or freeze for up to 3 months.  When you are ready to serve the soup, add the optional whisked egg yolk to the cold soup and heat slowly so that the egg doesn't scramble, whisking constantly.  The egg enriches the soup, but unless I am serving this to company, I usually just leave it out .  When the soup is warm, stir in the cream (I usually just use some skim milk).  Add just a bit at a time and taste.  You may not want to dilute the flavor of the soup with all of the cream.  Just simmer until the soup is warm. 

Freeze on the tray until the soup is frozen solid.

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  I store many soups and sauces in my upright freezer.  It's much easier to stack the freezer bags if they are frozen flat.  I always freeze the bags on trays until the soup is solidly frozen and then I remove the trays and stack the bags on top of each other on the freezer shelves.  You can also stand them "on end" inside plastic storage bins.  This makes for easy access and visibility on the freezer shelves.
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  Did you wonder why I just didn't throw all the tomatoes in the same pot?  I've done that before;  the soup turns out brown and un-appetizing. 
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  Be sure to label your freezer containers.  You don't want to mix up tomatillo sauce, tomato soups and squash soups.  The green and orange colors are similar.

I love the swirls of cream in this photo.  They remind me of fall leaves.  If you like tomato soup you will love the fresh garden flavors of this one.

Very Fresh Cream of Tomato Soup

12 ripe tomatoes, peeled and cut up

1 cup of chicken stock or water

1cup of chopped celery

½ cup of onion, diced

¼ cup of minced fresh Italian parsley

3 Tab. of cornstarch

3 Tab. of butter, melted

2 Tab. of brown sugar

2 tsp. of salt

2 cups of light cream

1 egg yolk, beaten

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Simmer tomatoes, water, celery, onion, and parsley for 30 minutes. Puree and strain.

Mix together butter and cornstarch. Stir into soup and let simmer over medium heat until thickened slightly.

Add brown sugar, salt and pepper. (Freeze, if desired, at this point.)
When you are ready to serve, stir the cream and egg into the hot soup.

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  Makes about 2 quarts.

This soup is great made with red tomatoes too, but I used them for something else.  I'll post more on that later.

Linked to Hearth 'n Soul, Tip Day Family Thursday, and Grow Your Own.  Hop over and see what everyone else posted this week.