Cooking for friends - Tomato and pepper soup

A picture-less couple of posts as there isn't really a lot of time or thought for pictures when you're serving up a meal for guests! I might have a picture somewhere of the trial run I did for the soup though.

This tomato soup recipe I adapted from the recipe at Nigella's website, and the main change was to make it serve 5 people and be a bit more peppery. Here is the original:

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/roasted-tomato-and-red-pepper-soup-3238

This is a brilliant soup to make if you have friends over, because once the chopping is done you just stick it in the oven for 40-45 minutes and blend it with some stock in the end. It leasves plenty of time for socialising outside of the kitchen! I made bread rolls the day before to go with it with my usual bread machine method.

The soup itself is quite textured; if you don't like the skins on the tomatoes and peppers you can peel them afterwards by sticking them in a sealed plastic bag for a few minutes and letting the skins steam so they can easily peeled off. It's a lot of effort though, and probably best done with just the peppers. You can add cream/creme fraiche/soft goat's cheese as the end to make the soup a bit richer.


Roasted tomato and pepper soup

Serves 5

Takes around 1 hour and 10 minutes to complete totally


800g vine tomatoes

3 peppers (red is good for colour, but any can be used; I used 2 red and 1 orange)

2 small red onions

5-6 cloves of garlic

650ml stock

1.5 tbsp Mushroom ketchup/soy sauce/Worcestershire sauce

Olive oil and seasoning

The recipe on the website includes tabasco which I didn't use as I'm not a spice fan, but would go very well.

Preheat oven to 200C (180C fan)


* Prepare the vegetables - Cut the tomatoes into halves or quarters (depending on size), the peppers into quarters, the onions into chunky wedges and separate the garlic cloves but keep the skin on.

* Put all the vegetables into a large roasting tin, season and drizzle with your preferred amount of olive oil. Mix well.

* Roast the veggies for 40-45 minutes so they become soft and slightly blackened.

* A few minutes before the veggies are due to come out make up the stock and keep it hot it in a large pan.

* When the veggies are out, first squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins into the stock and add the mushroom ketchup. Then plonk in all the veggies and mix around a bit. Heat if required.

* Whizz up with a hand blender or in a food processor.

Soup done!

Pea, potato and rocket soup

This is a very thick soup and best suited to the cold winter nights! It doesn’t look all too pretty - it won’t convince anyone who doesn’t like their greens - but it honestly does taste good, even for someone who is a bit ambiguous about peas. The best way to blend it is in a food processor, but I’m a bit squeamish about handling boiling soup (and I don’t like washing up extra bits) so I used a hand blender. If a food processor is used then it’ll come out a lot smoother. Oh, and use your largest pan for this one! I had to skimp on the rocket because it simply would not all fit.

Pea, potato and rocket soup

Serves 4-6 (A very generous 4)

Took about 40 minutes in all, but I used leftover ready cooked potatoes from the day before.

1 onion, finely chopped

250g potatoes, chopped

500g frozen peas

100 rocket leaves, roughly chopped

1L vegetable stock

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Juice of 1 lemon

2 tsp thyme

Oil for frying, salt and pepper for seasoning

*Heat the oil, then add the onion, garlic and thyme and cook for 5 minutes or until the onion is softened. Then add the potatoes and cook for a further 5 minutes.

*Stir in the peas, stock, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

*Add the rocket and lemon juice then blend the soup on whichever way you prefer.

*If gone cold then return to the pan and heat through.

*Serve with some good rustic-style bread.

Notes: You can decorate the surface of the soup with a swirl of sour cream, a squiggle of good olive oil or a sprinkling of multi-coloured ground pepper.

P.S. Happy new year!