Roasted Tomato Soup

A funny thing happened to all of those green tomatoes that I had inherited from Jo-Ann’s garden. Apparently, I didn’t work through them soon enough and a quarter of them turned a beautiful deep red! I ate as many as I could but there were too many heading towards their peak. I wanted to take advantage of their deliciousness but didn’t have the time to make a sauce. Roasting them whole is a very easy way to cook them and it adds a deeper flavor. If you have a Vitamix, or powerful mixer, you can skip the food mill step. I finished it with shaved Parmesan and pesto that I had made and frozen in small containers. If you don’t have any in your freezer, you could use the grocery store kind. This soup cries out for a grilled cheese as a lunch partner.

Roasted Tomato Soup
1 pound tomatoes
5 cloves of garlic
1 small red onion
3 cups vegetable or chicken broth
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon sea salt
1/2-1 tablespoons sugar
4 oz basil pesto
2 oz Parmesan cheese
Instruction
1. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roast tomatoes whole, with stems cut out, until skin is lightly blackened. Let cool and pull off most of the skin. Process through a food mill to remove seeds.
2. Heat the olive oil in a soup pot. Add the onion and garlic and saute until soft.
3. Add the roasted tomatoes, bay leaves and broth and bring to a simmer. Continue simmering for 15 minutes. Add milk and salt and simmer for another five minutes.
4. Turn heat off soup and let cool slightly. Puree in a blender in batches.
5. Reheat soup and serve with Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top and a tablespoon of pesto on top.