With winter now upon us here in Australia, cold and flu season has also arrived. Jack and I have both suffered from bad colds/minor flu in the last couple of weeks and these cold days we've been having, and yes I really mean cold, haven/t been helping. We've been craving warm days in bed and hot soup.
We had an abundance of tomatoes in the fridge recently that were due for the eating so instead of seeing them going to waste in the salad drawer I decided to whip them up into a soup of my own making. It was a bit of an experiment but it went down like a treat with all of us here so I thought I'd share it with you so you can whip it up to warm your cockles or just because you fancy a cosy day involving a big bowl of soup.
For the basil oil:
-large bunch of fresh basil
-sea salt
-200ml of olive oil
Remove the leaves from the basil and put them in a pestle and mortar along with the salt and bash them until the leaves turn into a dark green paste.
Put the paste into a jug and add the olive oil mix the ingredients together until it forms one substance.
For the soup:
-2kg of tomatoes, the more varieties the better
-apple cider vinegar
-2 cloves of garlic
-olive oil
-dried basil
-salt and pepper
-brown rice
Heat olive oil in a roast tray for roughly five minutes.
Put the tomatoes in the roasting tray with extra olive oil, sprinkle with dried basil and salt and pepper, Roast the tomatoes at 250C/482F/Gas Mark 9 (yep not 4 for a change), for half an hour or until browned, bursting and looking gorgeous.
Once the tomatoes are roasted, add a glug of olive oil to the biggest pan you can get your mits on and crush the garlic.
Fry for about a minute and then add the roasted tomatoes.
Continue to cook the tomatoes until they're broken down more or less completely. If the tomatoes are ripe they're be naturally sweet and this will take about five minutes. If not just wait until it happens.
Once the tomatoes have broken down add 1 litre of water and the brown rice.
Continue to cook the soup until the rice has cooked, follow the packet instructions but this will probably be about half an hour.
Once the rice is cooked take the soup of the heat and blitz it to your desired consistency with a hand blender.
For the yummy toast:
-2 slices of bread per person
-olive oil
-salt and pepper
Drizzle the bread with olive oil on both sides and salt and pepper on one.
Put under the grill for about 7 minutes on each side or until crispy and golden.
You can then either cut them into soldiers of leave the slices whole.
To serve ladle the soup into large bowls and drizzle with the basil oil. Serve the yummy toasts, really they're croutons, on the side and enjoy.
I hope you enjoy creating this recipe for yourself and your loved ones. Be sure to let me know how it goes and what you think.
What's your favourite winter warmer recipe?
Until next time,
