I love the concept of Farm to Table where I grow my own veggies and cook them immediately after harvesting. This is a simple tomato basil soup which had fresh tomatoes and basil harvested from the garden and cooked into a hearty soup which was perfect for the rainy weather.
These tomato plants were not planted but instead was grown of its own. Since we compost all the organic waste at home, these plants grow out of the manure collected from compost. I had even pomegranate plants grow on its own. These tomato plants started growing in the orange plant which I planted few months back. Sometimes keeping different plants in the same pot might result in malnutrition for either of them. But these tomato plants started growing fast and was bearing fruits in no time. So I didn’t have the heart to weed them out. There were two plants and it had almost 10 fruit in each plant in a month’s time. Look how beautifully they have started bearing fruits below. I also grow Basil at home. Whenever I visit a place where they have some plants or trees growing I try to collect seeds or plants and try to grow it at home. The basil seeds were collected from my husband’s grandma place where they had some basils growing. They grow quickly since its a herd and you can use them to make soups, pesto sauce and even some cocktails 🙂
Tomato Basil Soup Recipe
Ingredients (Serving 4):
Tomatoes – 4-5 (coarsely chopped)
Onion – 1 (coarsely chopped)
Garlic – 5-6
Basil leaves – 1 cup
Butter – 2 spoons
Salt – 1 spoon
Pepper – 1 spoon
Water – 2 cups
Steps:
Heat a Kadai or a cooking pot and add 2 spoon of butter ( I usually prefer mud pot or iron vessels for cooking) Don’t over cook the butter, you just need to melt it.
Once its melted add the copped onion and garlic. Add little salt for the onions to cook.
After the onion and garlic are cooked, add in the tomatoes. Let the tomato soften a bit. Again add little salt. I keep adding little salt at each stage of the cooking so that it brings out the flavour from each ingredient.
After the tomatoes are cooked, add 2 cups of water and let it come to a boil. At this stage add in the Basil leaves and switch off the stove. Let the leaves soak in for sometime until its cooled down.
Once its cooled, blend it together and strain it completely.
Heat the strained soup and add in the pepper and serve hot
Note: When you are heating the soup, you can dd in cheese cubes if you prefer a cheesy soup. Or you could add in cream or milk maybe 1/4th cup if you want a thicker consistency. If you are adding cream or milk, make sure you don’t boil it to prevent it from crumbling. Add in the milk or cream, give a stir and then switch off the stove.
All the vegetable skin and the strained soup waste all goes into the compost 🙂
Chennaivaasi 