Girl's Gone Child: Eat Well: Tomayto, Tomahto

The following post was written by my mom, WWW. Thanks, mom!

I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with all of my tomatoes and have been combing through past Eat Well posts to find all of my favorite recipes. As I said a couple of weeks ago, these grafted varieties give a crazy number of huge tomatoes, which is awesome but also comes with some responsibility. I have been giving them away left and right but daily I pick 10-12 new ones and I don’t want them to go to waste. For any of you with a similar joy, or for those of you taking advantage of cheap tomatoes at the farmer’s market, I thought it would be a good idea to list my favorite tomato recipes here so that you have all them in one place. And…I made a new tomato soup recipe today, which was yummy, easy, and used up 10 of my tomatoes, so I am including it. What I love about this recipe is that it is creamy without the cream (the rice makes it thick and creamy). And if you have a high-speed blender (Vitamix), there is no need to strain out the seeds and skins.

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Tomato Soup

(From Alice Waters The Art of Simple Food)

2 T olive oil

2 T butter

1 medium onion, sliced

1 small leek, white and light green parts, sliced

Salt

2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced

2 lbs ripe tomatoes (about 10 medium tomatoes), washed, cored, and sliced

1 T white rice

½ bay leaf

1 small sprig of savory, thyme, or basil

1 cup water

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Heat pan over medium heat. Add oil and 1 tablespoon of the butter. Add onions and leeks, cover and cook until soft but not brown. (Add water to keep from browning if necessary.) Add garlic and cook another 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, rice, a pinch of salt, bay leaf, and sprig of herbs.

Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes fall apart. Add water and rest of butter and continue cooking until the rice is tender (10-20 minutes). Remove the herb sprig. Carefully ladle the soup into a blender and blend until smooth. If you have a traditional blender, you can pass the soup through a medium strainer to remove skins and seeds if you want to, but I used my Vitamix and it was perfect…no straining needed. You can add more water if it is too thick for you.