Weeknight · All year

Farmhouse Tomato Soup

Onion in butter, tomatoes, and broth. Cream goes in off the boil, or not at all.

40 minutes · Serves 6 · About 8 cups

“Go, eat your bread with pleasure, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart.”
Ecclesiastes 9:7

Ingredients

3 tbsp butter
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
28 oz canned whole tomatoes, with their juice, or 3 pounds ripe tomatoes, chopped
2 cups chicken broth
1 tsp fine salt
½ tsp black pepper
½ cup cream, optional

1
Melt the butter in a pot over medium heat. Cook the onion until soft, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic for 30 seconds.
2
Add the tomatoes, broth, salt, and pepper. If you are using whole canned tomatoes, crush them with a spoon. Simmer 25 minutes.
3
Mash the soup, or blend it in batches with the lid ajar so the heat can escape. A sealed blender of hot soup can burst. Return it to the pot.
4
If you want it richer, take it off the boil and stir in the cream. Do not boil it after the cream goes in. Taste for salt.

A grilled cheese on the sourdough sandwich loaf is the right thing beside this. The soup does not need a garnish to be finished.
If the soup tastes sharp, a small pinch of salt does more than a spoon of sugar. Add salt first, then decide.

Kept on this device, beside the recipe, for the next time you cook it.

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