August 20, 2009
Tomato Basil Soup
Many of the recipes I use have been reverse engineered from food I have liked at restaurants. Usually once a year we go to Bar Harbor for the day and what a great place for food. One of our stomps is Galyn's, they have many great dishes and specialties. At a time when tomatoes are every where. That year I was picking up tomatoes cheap at the farmers and everyone with a garden was giving them away. Unfortunately this year we may not see any tomatoes it has been such a cold and rainy summer, hardly any sun, be that as it may. You may be at a place where the tomatoes are all over the place. This recipe after a bunch of tweaking and in no way resembles Galyn's recipe.
Ingredients
2 1/2 lbs of Tomatoes(not cherry tomatoes they will be too hard to peel, ripe is good)
1 1/2 stocks of clery
1/2 Green Pepper
1/2 Onion(white or yellow)
6 oz. Chili sauce
1 small can of tomato paste
1 cup sherry(sherry or white wine will work)
3 cups of water
1 or 2 tbsp Dry basil and additional fresh basil if you have it(fresh is fairly mild)
1/2 to 1 tsp of crushed red pepper(hot)
2 tsp sugar
Preparation
Boil tomatoes until you see the skin bubble, add to a big bowl of cold water. The cold water will cool it off so you can handle them enough to peel them. Core and chp in 1 1/2 to 2 inch pieces pretty chuncky.
Add tomatoes to medium to large pot, whatever you have. Add 3 cups of water and sherry. Add spices, tomato paste, chili sauce and onion but leave celery and pepper aside. Bring to hard boil, simmer 45 minutes to an hour and then add celery and pepper and cook another 1/2 hour.
