Roasted Cherry Tomato Soup with Herbs

I think that roasting almost anything makes it so much more delicious and brings out the concentrated flavors so well, with so little effort on the cook's part. This soup is almost completely comprised of roasted cherry tomatoes (or other small vine tomatoes) and tastes great. You will definitely need a blender or food processor to do it though. Also - it sounds like a lot of tomatoes but this amount yielded enough for about 4 large bowls.

This is modified from Kathy's recipe, original here: http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2011/08/roasted-tomato-soup-with-grilled-daiya.html

Roasted Cherry Tomato Soup with Herbs

Ingredients:

-4 lbs. cherry tomatoes, or other small vine tomatoes - washed and removed from vines

-2 sweet onions, peeled and chopped into large sections

-4 tbsp. dried Italian herbs (inc. basil, oregano, rosemary)

-handful of sprigs of fresh thyme

-1 tsp. sea salt

-4 tbsp. lemon juice

-8 tbsp. olive oil (a good one if you have it)

-5 cloves garlic, peeled but left whole

-1 tbsp. vegan butter (or margarine)

-1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

-fresh ground black pepper, to taste

Method:

Preheat oven to 400F. In a roasting pan, spread out tomatoes and onion in one layer. If you have too many, you might have to roast in 2 batches, as I did. Pour 1/2 the olive oil and 1/2 the lemon juice over the tomatoes/onion if you're roasting in 2 batches. (If you can fit all the tomatoes/onions in one layer of your pan, then 1 batch is fine, then just put all the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and herbs in one pan instead of splitting them between the 2.) Rub the oil and lemon juice on the tomatoes and onions with your fingers to ensure somewhat even distribution. 

 

Tomatoes, onions, herbs and garlic BEFORE roasting



Then sprinkle the salt and dried herbs over the tomatoes/onions and stick in the garlic cloves and sprigs of thyme. Sprinkle some cracked pepper on top of the whole pan and put in the oven for 20 minutes, or until the onions are very soft. Remove the pan from the oven and remove the onions from the pan with tongs and set them on a plate to cool. Put the roasting pan back in the oven for another 20-25 minutes. Your tomatoes should look a little browned, shriveled, and popping open - but not burned. At that point, remove the pan and set on a rack to cool for a bit. At this point, remove all the thyme stems and throw them away.



Tomatoes, onions, herbs and garlic AFTER roasting



Put the vegan butter/margarine, onions and the tomato mixture from the roasting pan (along with all the oils/juices!) into a food processor or blender, and blend until very smooth. You will probably have to do this in 2 batches as well unless you have a seriously large blender. It's ok if the batches don't have even amounts of herbs/oil, etc because you're going to transfer all of it into a soup pan on the stove to keep warm and add the final ingredient - a little cayenne. At that point it will all become mixed and blended well.

Once it's simmered on the stove for a bit, serve!

Extreme close up