Рецепт Tomato Soup for the freezer, Sunday markets
I’ts soup time chez nous.
Everyday I go out to my potager and come back with a full basket of vegetables.
That’s the thing about kitchen gardens…. You wait and watch and water and wonder if you’ll ever get anything and all of a sudden it goes crazy.
Strangely, I’m still getting very few zucchini, but the green beans and tomatoes are exploding.
The Roma tomatoes get peeled, chopped and frozen for winter use – I haven’t bought a tinned tomato in years….
The other tomatoes we eat as fast as we can, but when the countertop is no longer visible I make soup for the freezer.
Mon mari likes to have a ‘cup of hot soup’ with his lunch during the cold months and I refuse to buy the packaged crap variety…. Especially since it’s so easy to make.
I make ‘soup for the freezer’ out of green beans and zucchini as well. When possible I make the soups very thick, so they take up less room in the freezer, then thin them to the right consistency when thawed.
The frozen soups make a great base for other soups as well – you could add white beans or pasta or other vegetables to the tomato soup for a heartier lunch or a bit of Marsala and a dab of yogurt for a first course.
Tomato Soup
Total time: 40 minutes
Ingredients:
- 4 or 5 large, ripe tomatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1/2 large red pepper, chopped
- 2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
- 1 tbs olive oil
- 2 tsp Herbes de Provence
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
In large saucepan sauté onion, pepper and carrot in oil while you peel the tomatoes.
Add tomatoes, herbs and heat to boiling.
Reduce heat slightly and cook at a hard simmer for 30 minutes, uncovered – to help it reduce and thicken a bit..
Cool, purée and use or freeze.
Last Sunday we went to a Medieval Fair.
This Sunday we went to a local market.
Well, not very local….
I’ve been hearing what a fantastic Sunday market this village had and decided we should go while it was still geared up for tourist season. Today was our last chance.
It was big…. And crowded.
But still, a typical market. There were chickens, with heads and feet for sale as well as skinned rabbits (the long, pink beasties next to the yellow chickens.
Some of the chickens were ready to eat.
The potatoes are beneath the chickens to cook in the drippings.
And sausages, of course…. Note the cute stuffed pink pig.
The fruit and vegetables were abundant and beautiful.
This being foie gras country, there were tins of various types of duck and liver
And coffee shops everywhere.
And lots of stalls with clothes and belts and hats and scarves and toys and books and bedspreads and bags and and and……
Since it was Sunday the boules court was busy.
There were cheese stalls and wine stalls and lots of food stalls.
We were very ‘French’ in our purchases….
For a savory we had ‘nem’, Vietnamese eggrolls.
For a sweet we had canelés, a wonderful, sweet, eggy specialty of Bordeaux.
That’s how we spent our Sunday morning.