Tomato Soup Recipe

Looking for a really good, think, slightly creamy fail proof tomato soup recipe.

Short of pureeing a tin of tomatoes, has anyone got a lovely recipe they would like to share?Thanks

saltness, I absolutely recommend this soup - it is fail proof and as you will see it is multi-purpose (i.e. soup and/or juice) although I have only ever served it as soup - either as is or as cream of tomato soup.

ALISON HOLST’S FRESH TOMATO SOUP
1-1.5 Kg ripe red tomatoes
1 slice white or brown bread or a bread crust
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
½ tsp each of dried basilanddried oregano
1-2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 onion, chopped onion
about 2 tsp wine vinegar
Optional: parsley, bay leaf, thyme

Put the tomatoes into a large microwave casserole, halving large ones. Break the bread into small pieces and add it to the tomatoes. Sprinkle with the salt, sugar, basil and oregano, replacing the dried herbs with fresh ones if you have them. Add the chopped garlic and onions, and small quantities of other herbs you have. Cover the microwave dish, and cook until tender and mushy. Cook at HIGH power for about 10 minutes, then lower the power to 50% if you think the mixture may boil over, and cook for 10 minutes longer - if there is no danger of overflow, leave it on high power. Break up the mixture with a potato masher, leave to stand for about 5 minutes, then shake and press through a coarse sieve (I use the food processor and don’t sieve it – depends how smooth you like it or if it’s to be served as juice). Add the vinegar, tasting after 1 spoonful is mixed in. Cover and chill in the refrigerator, adjust seasonings if necessary.
If serving as JUICE pour into glasses over ice. Add a dash of hot pepper sauce or Worcestershire sauce to each glass, and put a stirring stick of celery in each glass if you like.
If serving as a COLD SOUP, pour into individual bowls just before serving. Serve like this, or pass bowls containing crisp croutons, diced celery, diced peppers, cubed tomatoes, cubed avocado, chopped cucumbers, etc.
If serving as HOT SOUP, stir in parsley or chives if desired, or stir in as much cream, crème fraiche, or sour cream as you like, making cream of tomato soup. Serve with croutons, if desired.
Note: If cooking this soup on the stove-top add the bread once the tomatoes are cooked until tender.
This soup freezes well too. :-))

my recipe of alison's doesn't include the bread ~ wonder why that's been added?

darlingmole, does your recipe have any form of added thickening?The recipe is on page 8 of Alison Holst's Kitchen Diary Volume 11 and here is her preface to the recipe - from that you'll see why/how come the bread has been added as in the above recipe.....
"FRESH TOMATO SOUP
Sometimes, when I am making a familiar recipe, I do something a little different, and find that I have produced a better product as a result. When I think about it later, I cannot understand why I did not think of doing this before, since it is so simple, and so basic.
This happened to me recently, when I was cooking with tomatoes. We try to grow enough tomatoes to have plenty to use right through the season. It is hard to get the supply and demand exactly right, however, and I find that, every now and then, I have to make an expedition out to the garden to pick tomatoes which have split, or become riper than I like them to be for eating raw.
To streamline the process I take the container in which I will cook the tomatoes, out to the garden with me, and pick straight into it.
Back in the kitchen I can pick them over, if necessary, add seasonings and flavourings, and pop them straight on to cook. On the morning of my experiment, the garden seemed more inviting than my kitchen of dirty breakfast dishes, and when I returned from it I put my microwave dish of tomatoes down on the bench with breakfast debris. I made my usual addition, then looked at the end-of-Ioaf crust of heavy-textured brown bread lying on the bench, and decided to break it into little bits and cook it with my tomato mixture, in the microwave oven, while I tidied up the other mess. I squashed the cooked mixture with a potato masher, shook it through a sieve, then refrigerated it.
When I came to use it, some for tomato juice, and some for cold tomato soup, I found it nicer than any of the tomato mixtures I had made before because of the way it had thickened slightly.
When I thought about this, I realised that I thickened my uncooked tomato soup with white bread crumbs, and that it was sensible to do the same with a cooked mixture. This cooked soup had a texture better than that of the uncooked soup, and better than cooked soup thickened with cornflour or arrowroot.
I do not think that this tomato mixture should be bottled, nor preserved in jars, since it has been thickened, and requires pressure cooking for safety. It can be frozen, though.
You may want to alter the proportions of bread, herbs and seasonings, and if you cook the tomatoes on the top of the stove you should add the bread after the tomatoes are tender.
I hope you will try it, and that you enjoy it as much as we do, as juice, or as cold or hot soup."

Thanks to Alison Holst for a recipe that we have enjoyed many many times ever since the book was published in 1988.:-))

This is beautifull, but we usually make it into spaghetti rather than soup. Sorry about the foreign language.
9 lb tomatoes, 3/4 lb onions, 2 stalks celery, bunch parsley, 1 Dsp celery salt,
1 Dsp pepper, 2 Dsp salt ( we use seasalt). Cook all ingredients and put through moule (sp) Add 2 cups of sugar and 1/4 lb butter, then boil again, let cool, bottle or we deep freeze. Thicken to your preference when you are going to use it. You'll never want to eat canned sgetti ever again.

I make one similar to 245's recipe, from roasted tomatoes in the crockpot and use a slice of bread to thicken it slightly also, it makes a lovely thickness rather than a thin runny soup, great for freezing,have made it for years always goes down well with a dollop of sour cream and sprinkle of parsley.

The crockpot ... Why didn't I think of this ... awesome idea.Guess its just the same but cooked in the crockpot not the microwave?

Thanks everyone

Couple of points I missed sorry. 1 Dsp of mustard, no water in the first cooking of tomatoes, just in it's own juice. Only moule the tomatoes, the other ingredients are blended and added in for the second cooking.

I made this tonight with one tsp of wine vinegar and 1 tsp of kaitaia fire. It's fab Ill have it tomorrow and stir through some sour cream NOM NOM! Thanks so much for posting it.

Has anyone made Alison H soup using tinned toms instead of fresh and if so how many 400gm tins of puree or chopped toms would be equal to 1.5kg fresh-thanks