souper easy... souper fantastic...

... tomato soup!

Those who know me know that I only like to cook if I have a good excuse. My favourite excuse to cook is a dinner party.

In honour of the cooler weather and the approaching holiday season, I will share with you my internationally famous tomato soup recipe. I created this recipe from scratch and everyone who tries it, loves it!

1) Go pick tomatoes from your garden
2) Peel the skins
3) Preserve them...

Ha ha! I'm only kidding... Here's the real recipe:

You will need:

2 cans tomatoes basil
cream or 2% milk pepper
olive oil garlic
parmesean cheese coriander

1) Take two small cans of whole tomatoes (preferably unseasoned tomatoes), blend tomatoes in a blender for about 20 seconds, or until they have formed a "soupy" consistency. The consistency can be as chunky or as liquid as you like, depending on how you prefer your soup. If you don't have whole tomatoes, or a blender, you can use crushed tomatoes.

2) Coarsely chop 2 cloves of garlic. Then coarsely chop 4 large leaves of fresh basil.

3) In a medium sized pot, on medium heat, sautee about 1/3cup of olive oil and the garlic. You should cook the garlic until it begins to become translucent and until it starts to get a *little* brown.

4) Take the pot off the heat and add 1/4tsp ground coriander, or about 10 coriander seeds. Stir it around. Add about 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon pepper (more will make it hotter!), and then quickly dump the ground tomatoes into the pot. Add the chopped basil. Stir to mix.

5) If you have fresh parmesean grate in about 1/2 a tablespoon. If you have preground parmesean, put in about 1 teaspoon. Stir to blend.

6) Let this mixture simmer gently for about 15 to 20 minutes on medium heat to let some of the water evaporate, and to fuse the aromas of the ingredients.

7) Now add either cream or 2% milk. Cream will make the soup taste richer and will produce a thicker soup. (It will also be higher in calories.) Milk will produce a slightly less robust soup, but it will still be good. Allow to simmer gently and thicken for 15 to 20 minutes. Using cream will take less time to thicken the soup, with milk the soup may take a little longer to thicken.

When your soup is the desired consistency take it off the heat, and let it "rest" for five minutes or so. Ladle the soup into bowls. Garnish with a sprig of basil and a dash of parmesean!

Serves 2 big bowls for lunch or 4 smaller bowls for a dish in a multi-course meal.

This soup is great served with fresh crusty bread, or garlic bread.