Roasted Tomato Pepper Soup

 Now that we have summer's harvest of tomatoes and peppers, we are making lots of roasted soup!  Here's what Tony does.

First he slices his ingredients:

Then he layers them in a shallow sheet pan:

sliced Roma tomatoes

sliced red bell peppers

sliced carrots

chopped jalapenos, seeds removed

10 garlic cloves, cut in half

sliced onions

fresh or frozen corn

Coat all the veggies with a nice amount of extra virgin olive oil.

Season generously with salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Ready for the oven!

Roast in a 325-350 degree oven for about 90 minutes.

If you do more than one pan in a convection oven, you need to rotate the pans every 20 minutes and move the veggies to make sure nothing is burning on the top.

Roast them until all the veggies are soft and 

most of the liquid is gone.

Process them in a blender with chicken stock to the thickness you like.  We blended fresh Basil into the soup 

for a fresh element and it was really nice!

When you heat it you can add some cream 

for a smoother texture.

This soup freezes beautifully in containers.

It will be a lovely reminder of summer during our 

cold winter months!

Yellow Tomato Sauce

 We planted one grape tomato vine this year.  To our surprise the tomatoes ripened yellow, not red.  This happened to us once before and we made delicious savory sauce with these tomatoes. Since we have a plethora of them, we will be freezing lots of this sauce before winter comes.

Here's what Tony does:

Slice the tomatoes in halves or quarters, depending on the size.

Lightly brown a LOT of minced garlic in olive oil in a 

heavy-bottomed saucepan.

Add the tomatoes, chopped fresh basil and oregano, salt and pepper to taste.  Let simmer on medium low heat for about 30-40 minutes.

This freezes beautifully in plastic quart containers.  If you want a creamier consistency, use an immersion blender to pulverize the skins.

I have used this for lasagna, and as a pizza sauce.  It has a lovely smooth taste.