Vegetarian? Roasted Tomato, Almond and Basil Soup

I. Love. Food. I feel like that goes without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway. I especially love making food. Sadly, when you live by yourself, making a normal recipe usually results in enough food for at least 3 meals. My fridge is currently stuffed full of leftovers. In fact, it is so full that I didn't even need to go grocery shopping this weekend. Don't worry, I still went. I used the money to stock up on things while they were on sale. I mean, I budgeted the money for food, so I might as well use it for food right?

Where were we? Oh yes, food! Today I tried my first recipe out of the vegetarian cookbook I picked up at Half Price Books a few weeks ago. Seriously, $2 for a cookbook? Who would pass that up?! Not me that's for sure. Now, I am by no means a vegetarian, but I'm not opposed to vegetarian meals. The vegetarian lifestyle does have a lot of positives going for it. For example, a lot of vegetarian meals tend to be low in fat content. Personally, I just like meat too much to give it up. It tastes great, it can be pretty easy to prepare and it's a great source of protein. All that aside, I do like to mix it up, so today I made Roasted Tomato, Almond and Basil Soup and since I actually remembered to take pictures I'm going to share the recipe and how-to with you!

What you'll need

1/4 cup olive oil
2lb & 4 oz vine-ripened tomatoes (for me this was 6 medium tomatoes)
1 large onion (I used about 1/4 of an onion. I just really don't like onion and thought a whole one would be WAY too much)
2 garlic cloves (thinly sliced)
1/3 cup blanched almonds
2 handfuls basil, roughly torn
3 cups vegetable stock (I only used 22 ounces because I had that leftover and didn't want to buy another carton for just 2 more ounces.)

Step 1

Roasted tomatoes waiting to be skinned.

Pre-heat the oven to 350F. Grease a baking sheet with 1 Tbsp of the oil. Cut the tomatoes in half, scoop out the seeds and arrange, cut side down, on the tray. Roast for 15 minutes, then remove from the oven and set aside until the tomatoes are cool enough to handle. Discard skin and roughly chop the flesh.

Step 2

Heat the remaining oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Saute the onion and garlic for 5-6 minutes.

Step 3

Add the chopped tomato, almonds and half the basil. Fry, stirring once or twice, for 5 minutes.

Step 4

Transfer the mixture to a small processor and whizz for 15-20 seconds, or until thick and smooth.

Step 5

Return the mixture to the saucepan, stir in the stock and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

Step 6

Stir in the remaining basil, season with salt and black pepper, to taste. 

 My notes/variations

First of all, I had no idea what blanched almonds were so I just bought normal almonds. Upon further investigation, I discovered that one can blanch almonds by pouring boiling water over the almonds and allowing them to soak for a minute. After soaking the skin of the almond comes loose and can be removed. Personally, after doing this by hand, next time I'm either buying blanched almonds or just using them raw as they are. 

Second, while the roasting of the tomatoes was easy, skinning them wasn't. Next time I'm going to score the tomatoes before roasting them, that way the skin is guaranteed to pull away from the flesh. Giving me an easy starting point. 

I enjoyed my soup with some cheese and croutons. It was definitely delicious but I think substituting some of the broth for cream would make it even better. Of course, so would some bacon but that would kind of defeat the whole vegetarian thing...

I hope you enjoyed my first recipe post! I plan to make these types of posts a habit! The next one will feature my personal banana bread recipe! Get excited! I know I am.

As always, thanks for reading! 

Lauren