Simple Tomato Soup with Roasted Garlic

This winter has been intense and never-ending, so I decided to delve into the realm of homemade soups to cope. I've never been one for making soup, since I've always been under the impression that soups are too involved and you end up with way more than you can possibly eat before it goes bad or you get tired of eating the same thing at every meal. But over the past few months, I've learned that this is definitely not the case. I started simple, and as a result I discovered that soup can be very very simple. Soup can be as involved and as complex as you want it to be. And the nice thing is that you can make a complex tasting soup out of a simple recipe. I decided that a basic tomato soup was the best way to illustrate this.

One of the easiest ways to add complexity of flavor to a simple soup is by using a homemade vegetable stock. I had never made my own stock before, but I got encouraged by watching Julia Child videos on youtube during those long 10 degree (or less) days in January. Making stock is incredibly simple and completely affordable (read: almost free), and once you know how simple it is, you will never go back to store bought. Simply save all of your vegetable scraps and cuttings (cleaned, of course) as you prepare dinner, throw them in a gallon bag, and store them in the freezer. Once your bag gets full, throw it all in a giant pot with anything extra you want to add (I like to add a portobello mushroom for umami), add water, bring it to a simmer for about 30 minutes to an hour, strain it through cheesecloth, and blamo! Homemade vegetable broth. Stick it in the freezer and you have it when you need it.

The quality of ingredients also makes a huge difference in the flavor of your soup. Something that I found to be frustrating when looking for a tomato soup recipe to use as a jumping off point was that recipes using fresh tomatoes as opposed to canned tomatoes are so few and far between. After reading all the bad things about cans leaching chemicals into canned tomatoes as a result of their acid content, I try to stay away from canned tomatoes as much as possible these days (But sometimes it's pretty unavoidable, especially in the dead of winter). But imagine making this in the summer with fresh heirloom tomatoes and serving it chilled! Fresh tomatoes bring so much more flavor to the table than canned tomatoes, and you run less of a risk of your soup tasting like a tomato pasta sauce. Yuck.

Another way I've found to add that little extra something to a simple soup recipe is to give some of the ingredients special treatment. In the case of this tomato soup, I've decided that ingredient will be roasted garlic. Sure it adds some time into the equation, but roasted garlic is always worth the extra time.

Basic Instructions for Roasting Garlic

Before you roast your garlic, remove all of the excess outer skins from the garlic head. You don't want this stuff in your delicious food.

Next, you want to slice the end off of the garlic head to reveal the inner cloves. You want to make sure you use a good sharp knife for this.

After you slice off the tops of the cloves, place your garlic in a tinfoil nest with extra virgin olive oil coating all exposed surfaces. Some people have a fancy garlic roaster and that's just fine, but tin foil works just as well.

Secure the foil so that you don't have any leaks, and place the garlic in a preheated 350 degree oven. I used the toaster oven for this since I was just doing the one head of garlic.
Check the garlic after about 30 minutes. Roasting the garlic can take anywhere from 30-45 minutes, depending on your oven.

 Be careful not to burn your garlic like I did! Burned garlic is made for trashcans, so please ignore the burned bits.

Now your garlic is ready for your soup!



Tomato Soup with Roasted Garlic 
makes about 3 quarts, or approximately 4 large servings

Ingredients

1 red onion, diced
2ish carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
5 cloves roasted garlic (save the rest for bread schmear or whatever)
1 large collard green, or 2 small (can substitute kale or some other green)
10 ripe roma tomatoes (approximately 2lbs, I didn't weigh them)
2-3 cups homemade vegetable stock
1/2 cup plain soy milk
Extra Virgin Olive Oil as needed
Balsamic Vinegar (can substitute with red or white wine)

1 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
~1 or 2 tsp nutritional yeast
1 habañero, diced*
1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 sprig fresh sage
~1 tsp Hungarian paprika*
~1/2 tsp fennel seeds*

*optional

Instructions

Sauté your mirepoix (aka. onion, celery, and carrot) in a pan with about 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil over medium heat. If you use the habañero, now is the time to use it. Rinse your hands and knife with lime juice to cut the capsaicin of the chili. Don't touch your face.

While your mirepoix is cooking, dice your tomatoes. If you used the habañero, make sure you get as much of the tomato juices under your nails and on your hands as possible. The acids from the tomatoes will help break down the capsaicin. Once you are finished handling the tomatoes, be sure to rinse your hands and your knife. This will help remove any lingering capsaicin residue. To be on the extra safe side, don't touch your face for the rest of the day.

Once your onions become translucent, add in the diced tomatoes, a couple more tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, and the teaspoon-ish of kosher salt. Adding the teaspoon of salt at this step is crucial if you expect your tomatoes to become tomato soup. The salt aides in breaking down the tomatoes into a liquid. Now would also be a great time to add in that roasted garlic. Mix everything together really well. Once you start to hear a good sizzle coming from your pan, add in a few tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and allow everything to reduce.

After about 10 minutes, you will notice everything begins to liquify a bit. Begin to process your herbs. Remove the leaves from the sage and chop finely. Give the same treatment to the rosemary. Save your stems, because they're all going in the pot.

After about 20 minutes, you'll notice that the tomatoes are almost completely broken down into a liquid. Add the herbs and stems, the nutritional yeast (this adds B vitamins and a nice creamy flavor),  any additional seasonings (I used paprika and fennel seeds), and pour in the vegetable stock. I used 3 cups of stock for this soup, but I think 2.5 might have been better. It really depends on how thick you want your soup to be. Once you get all of this added in, bring everything to a boil and let it simmer uncovered on low for about 10 minutes. During that 10 minutes, begin to process your collard green. Remove the stem and chop it fine. Set the leafy bits to the side.

After 10 minutes, check your soup for seasoning. Add salt or any other seasonings as you see fit. Also, if you want to blend the soup, this would be the time to do so. Because I like a chunky tomato soup, I just used a potato masher to help everything break down some more.

At this point, add in your soy milk and your chopped collard stem. Bring the whole pot back to a boil, turn off the heat, and put a lid on the pot. Walk away for at least 30 minutes. Don't you dare touch the lid, because your soup isn't done cooking.

After 30 minutes (or whenever you're ready to eat your soup), julienne the collard leaf into strips. Make sure the strips aren't too long, or you'll be eating collard green spaghetti.

Reheat the soup if necessary, and then turn off the heat. Add in the collard greens and stir. You are now ready to eat!

If you have any bread, you can use your leftover roasted garlic as a schmear. Matthew and I had this soup for lunch with some of his sourdough bread. It was even more delicious the next day.

So I hope you enjoy this lovely soup as much as we did! Tomato soup is so versatile, you can really add anything you want. You can also use this recipe as a base for a vegetable soup, just add more vegetables to balance the tomatoes. The best part about this recipe is that it's not only vegan, but it's also completely gluten free (if you don't count the sourdough on the side). If you do happen to make it, let us know how it went!