Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Soup

Well, the CSA is pretty much over and I had an abundance of tomatoes left (many that were green and ripened on my counter). I didn’t want them to go bad but what to do? You got it, tomato soup!

Choosing a Roasted Tomato Soup Recipe

I climbed on Pinterest a few days ago to begin my search. No surprises – there are a plethora of recipes for tomato soup. Most of them tomato basil centric but I wasn’t in the mood for that. I also knew I wanted to roast my tomatoes. So a different search, Roasted Tomato Soup. Still with the basil, and plenty that seemed fattening. Then, I found this recipe Healing Roasted Tomato and Red Pepper Soup.

I liked that it didn’t require basil. I also love the flavor combinations of roasted pepper and tomato. So I decided to make a roasted red pepper tomato soup.

Tweaking for Weight Watchers

The only thing that bothered me about the recipe was the amount of oil. I know under 3 tablespoons doesn’t really seem bad but I want this recipe to be simply filling. Simply filling allows you to have two teaspoons a day of healthy oil. So, I like to keep my recipe amounts to 1 teaspoon per serving or less. I only used 1 tablespoon and I think the end product is still delicious.

Other Tweaks

She specified a white onion in her recipe. I didn’t have any in my house, so I used a red onion. Try to not get hung up on issues like that. If you don’t have the exact ingredient, often there are easy substitutes.  I also wanted to use up all my tomatoes, so I used 6 decent medium-size tomatoes and two smaller. None of them were grape, cherry or roma tomatoes. Just random tomatoes from my CSA. Lastly, I had 3 red peppers and used all of them.

She peeled her garlic, drizzled it with oil and wrapped it in foil for roasting. I didn’t bother. Instead I put the whole cloves sprinkled on the tray and tossed them right in with the tomatoes and onions. After roasting, I peeled the garlic.

She gives two methods for roasting your red peppers, stove top with a gas burner and broiler in the oven. I did the former. But again, here’s a link to her recipe in case you want to read about the broiler recipe.

Lastly, because my tomatoes were decent size, I increased the roasting time to twenty five minutes.

Results

It’s multi-step but nothing daunting. The house smells wonderful while the veggies are roasting and though I haven’t done it yet, I bet it freezes well. As I mentioned, this qualifies as Simply Filling.  But if you’re tracking points, it’s only 1 point for a serving, 4 servings of 1.5 cups in the batch.

I’m missing the obligatory tomato soup with grilled cheese picture but I’ll come back later and update it. Never mind – see I had the soup for lunch the next day and added the photo.

Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Soup Ingredients

• 6-8 decent size vine ripened tomatoes (next time I’ll weigh them), quartered
• 3 red bell peppers (you can use orange or yellow if you like, just not green)
• 1 medium size red onion, sliced
• 6-7 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
• 1T olive oil
• 2t red wine vinegar
• salt, to taste
• crushed red pepper, to taste

Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Soup Directions

While oven preheats to 400 degrees, quarter the tomatoes, slice the onions and place with the garlic on a large jelly roll pan or two smaller ones, so it’s a single layer. Drizzle with the oil, sprinkle liberally with salt and toss. Roast for 20-25 minutes, turning halfway through so tomatoes are soft and release their juices.

 

While tomatoes roast, place peppers on open flame of gas range. Cook each side for 2-3 minutes, until charred, turning with tongs. DO NOT LEAVE PEPPERS UNATTENDED. You may see sparks or bits may catch a little fire – that’s normal. Once well blackened, put in a large bowl and cover with saran wrap. Let sit for 5 minutes to steam. This loosens the skin. Using a paper towel, peal the peppers. By the way, that paper towel trick she mentioned, is the bomb!

Slice peppers, removing stem/seeds and set aside.

Let tomatoes cool for a few minutes. Peel the garlic. Place tomato mixture, peppers, red wine vinegar and crushed red pepper (if using) in a blender. Do in batches if necessary so blender is no more than half-way full. Blend until smooth.  Adjust the seasoning if you like and serve.

Mine wasn’t hot enough when I finished this so it needed to be rewarmed a bit. Just be aware.