Tomato Soup

What is a Good Table without family and friends to share it with? I am so excited to have my nephew Ben be my guest blogger. Ok, I begged. He and his wife Chika make such yummy food I couldn't resist. And I love a hot bowl of Tomato Soup!
Been looking to stick it to Campbell's lately? Or maybe you just need to use up a bunch of tomatoes you had to pick before they froze. Well here is the prefect recipe for making your own delicious tomato soup.



First gather 1 gallon of tomatoes, wash the tomatoes and cut the stems, place them in a pot. Don't worry about peeling the tomatoes. we'll take care of that later. In case your wondering 1 gallon of tomatoes is about 6lbs (according to google) or 20-23 med tomatoes (according to bing).

Step two: Take all those washed tomatoes and smash them with a potato masher. This will give you enough juice to boil everything else in. You won't need to add any water in this recipe. (That's right Al Gore fans, slow the flow save H2O.)

After smashing, your pot should be about half tomatoes and half watery juice.

Add 7 sticks of celery, sliced thin for easy boiling, to the pot.

Add 4 med. onions to the pot as well. I also threw in 3 cloves of garlic for extra flavor. You can experiment with your own veg's if you would like.

Mix the three veges together in the pot and bring it to a boil. The consistency should be kind of like a watery stew.
Boil the mixture for about 25 minutes until the onions and celery are soft.

Now here is the hardest part. Take the vege mix and puree it in a food processor or blender. Blend until very smooth. I poured my vege mix in separate bowl and blended about 4 cups at a time.

After blending, strain the puree back into the pot. This will get rid of the skin and the seeds. Get as much juice out as you can. The pulp should be about like ground hamburger after being strained.
Now it is time to season our soup. It will seem pretty watery still. Add one stick of butter, 4 tsp Salt. 1/2 tsp black pepper, 3/4 cup sugar. After the soup is hot again add 1/3 of cup of corn starch to thicken it back up.

Let the soup simmer for about 10 minutes and your ready to eat! This soup can be frozen or canned if you want to save some for later. I hope you enjoy your soup.