Basic Tomato Soup

Making soup yourself can be a lengthy process. Most soups use a broth (or stock, is it the same?) as a base, which is basically flavoured liquid, and can be used in al sorts of cooking. To make broth is what takes the most time, you need to slowly boil ingredients to extract the flavours. Celery, carrot and onion (also called mirepoix) are usually used whether it's chicken, vegetable or meat based you will likely find these ingredients used to make the broth, it's what makes it taste soupy. Normally we don't eat soup very often but of course my daughter requested "the red soup" when I made chicken soup the other day, so I made that as well later that week. Because I usually don't have readymade broth on hand, and canned tomato soups are way to sweet for my taste, I had to improvise with what I had. I used the same (mirepoix) ingredient but cooked them for a shorter time and pureed them right into the soup, so I still got all the flavour and dinner on the table in about half an hour.

I didn't use any additional herbs (like oregano or basil) but you can certainly add those if you like, or finish the soup with some cream.
I peeled the celery stalks with a vegetable peeler, because the outside of celery has tough strings which don't disolve when cooked, you can also peel them by hand. Break the end carefully and pull alongside the length of the stalks, usually the strings come of quite easily.

Basic Tomato Soup
serves 4
2 large stalks of celery (I used 3 smaller ones)
1 large carrot
1 large onion
3-4 garlic cloves
small bunch of parsley (about 15 stalks)
2 cans (400 grams/ 14oz) of chopped or peeled tomatoes
2 tbsp of tomato puree
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil
about 1 litre (4 cups) of water

Peel the celery (see note) onion and garlic, dice everything including the carrot in small pieces. Chop the parsley very fine, use the stalks as well just trim the dry and brown ends of.

In a large pan over medium heat, heat a couple of tablespoon of olive oil. Add all the diced vegetables a big pinch of salt and cook for about 10 minutes stirring frequently. Add tomato puree and cook for another minutes or so whilst stirring.



Add the canned tomatoes a pinch of pepper and fill both cans with water (about 1 litre/ 4 cups) and add that as well. Stir and bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium low and let cook for about 15 to 20 minutes or until all vegetables are very soft. Process the soup in a blender (in bathes) until smooth (or use a stick blender) taste, adjust seasoning and serve.