Roasted Tomato Basil Soup: 6 Ingredients "Souper" Easy and Delicous

The weather is starting to get more Fall like in Upstate, NY.  This morning I put on a sweatshirt and headed out to the veggie garden to do some clean up and pick some of the last veggies.  I still have cucumbers growing and some peppers and just a few tomatoes.  I'm thinking I'll have to make fried green tomatoes tonight for my son but this afternoon I used the ripe tomatoes to make soup.

It really is super easy to make Tomato Basil Soup.  But to make it a little different I roasted the veggies first and I threw a pepper in as well which gave it a deeper, richer flavor. 

Ingredients
Tomatoes - about 5 or 6 depending upon the size
Bell Peppers - 1 medium or 2 small
1 small onion
1 glove garlic
basil
2 Cups chicken stock (or use veggie to make vegetarian)
I don't count the following in ingredients because they are pantry staples
Olive Oil
Salt and pepper
1/2 tsp sugar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. 

First you'll need to wash and cut your tomatoes in half and lay them on a cookie sheet.  Do the same with the pepper, discarding the seeds.  Peel and cut the onion and garlic and put those on the cookie sheet.  Your cookie sheet should be full but not over packed.  Drizzle with a little olive oil -- not much is needed, just a drizzle.

I already took some of the tomatoes off when I took the photo

I roasted the veggies at 325 for about 60 minutes.  I was making something else at the time that needed the 325 temp.  I've also slow roasted veggies at 300 for longer and I've sped things up when necessary and roasted at 400 for much less time. 

Put all of the ingredients into a food processor or blender and puree.  If you want a very creamy without chunks, run this through a food mill.  I like the texture of the small chunks of tomato and pepper so I didn't but either way is fine. 

 

At the veggie puree to a medium saucepan and add 2 cups of chicken stock, 1/2 tsp of sugar, about 1/4 tsp of salt and a few turns of fresh pepper.  Stir and heat through.  Add about 4 minced leaves of basil (or more or less to taste) and stir.  This soup is perfect just the way it is but I actually had some milk that I wanted to use up so I added about 1/4 cup of 2% milk. 

I would imagine that this would pair beautifully with a grilled cheese sandwich  on a day like today but I had a whole wheat English muffin with some almond butter and a cucumber salad.