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Health & Fitness

Cooking with Farm Fresh Produce: Spicy Heirloom Tomato Soup

A delicious light and spicy tomato soup to celebrate the end of summer and highlights local farm fresh produce.

At the very end of August, Campbell Patch announced a new program where residents could purchase a membership and receive a box of Organic Produce from local farms every week. Well, I have two growing boys and I know we should be eating better. Organic fruits and vegetables are so very expensive, I rarely purchase them. The box option seemed reasonable and affordable and I really like the idea of organic AND supporting local farms. So now I am faced with a daunting box of vegetables and what to do with them! Some of them I have never tried before. This week I found myself with beautiful heirloom tomatoes and yellow, orange and green cherry tomatoes about to go bad on me. I couldn’t eat them fast enough! All I could think of was tomato soup. This was my improvised recipe. It has received 5 stars Joey* rating.

Spicy Heirloom Tomato Soup

5 large ripe heirloom tomatoes
1 pint ripe yellow, orange and green cherry tomatoes
1T butter
1T chopped garlic
1 celery stalk, chopped fine
1 shallot, chopped fine
2 white mushrooms, chopped fine
1T sugar *optional
1tsp red pepper flakes *optional
pinch of dried thyme
1/8tsp of dried basil
salt and pepper to taste

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Bring a large pot of water to boil, drop in 5 large very ripe heirloom tomatoes and one pint of yellow, orange and green cherry tomatoes. Blanch for 3 minutes. Drain well. Let cool.

In a soup pot, simmer celery, shallots, garlic mushrooms in butter.

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Over a bowl to catch the juice and flesh, peel tomatoes, discarding skin. The cherry tomatoes pop out of their skins if you nick the bottom then pinch. Break up any big pieces of tomato. Add tomatoes and juice to the pot. Add sugar, thyme, basil and red pepper. Simmer for 20 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

Using an emersion or regular blender, blend soup to a smooth consistency.

Serve with grilled ham and cheese dippers.

Got leftovers? Mix it with noodles and grilled veggies for a tasty treat!

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