Fresh Tomato Soup, and other supper goodness

Supper tonight was, I have to admit, all the left-overs from last week’s farmer’s market haul. I had to make room for the new stuff!

The beans were the leftovers from lunch, served cold. New potatoes were simply washed, quartered, and boiled; top them with a little butter, salt and pepper at the table if you like.

The soup pulled it all together and added the bulk of the meal’s protein, thanks to the last of the cheddar cheese curds from the Thornloe cheese factory I picked up during our August long weekend trip there.

Fresh Tomato Soup

2 tsp olive oil
2 gloves garlic
1/2 small onion
8 or 10 fresh Roma tomatoes, chopped (mine worked out to 3.5 cups when chopped)
2 cups chicken stock
1/2 tsp dried basil (by all means substitute 1 tbsp fresh – I didn’t have any)
2 tbsp flour in 1/4 cup cold water
1/4 cup cheese curds

salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat the oil in a largish pot and add the garlic, minced, and the onion, chopped up.
2. Add the stock, tomatoes, and basil, and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes.
3. Use an immersion blender, if you have one, to blend the soup in the pot. Otherwise you can use your blender, but you should let it cool a bit first, and then put it back in the pot to warm back up.
4. Mix the flour into the water until there are no lumps, and add to the soup. Let simmer for five minutes – it should thicken up a little.
5. Divide the cheese curds between two serving bowls. Ladle half the soup into each bowl.

The beauty of the cheese curds is that they melt into those lovely toothsome strings that you get with proper poutine. You can, of course, just slice up some cheddar and add that instead – mozzarella would probably be good too.

Each serving is 193 calories, or 4 Weight Watchers points. You get an impressive three servings of vegetables for that.

EDIT:  It’s Saturday now, and I just heated up the leftover soup from last night; the two servings were a bit too generous, even for us.  Even though my usual reaction to “stir in a spoonful of plain yogurt” is “ugh, no thanks”, I just did it; and it’s great!  It adds some creaminess and adds a bit of a tang, without adding that overpowering plain-yogurt tang.  I do wish that I’d peeled my tomatoes, though – I hate those little bits of rolled-up skin.