Roasted tomato soup

The perfect antidote to a gloomy autumn day

I’ve been on a bit of a soup-making bender in recent weeks, but when the temperature drops you do just need a comforting and warming bowlful. So I have had no choice, but to churn out multiple batches a week.

There really is nothing simpler to cook up. There aren’t many ways to do it, and probably very few ways to get it badly wrong. My standard formulation - deployed here - is to take delicious ingredients, roast them until they’re even more delicious, then pop into a pot, add stock and blitz. There are endless options.

For this roasted tomato soup, I am making about a litre and a half to keep in the fridge and warm through for lunches. You can easily adapt the volume of ingredients if you want fewer portions. Obviously, you can also make this vegan by substituting the cream for a plant-based alternative.

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The recipe

Serves: 6 Cooking time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

• Olive oil

• 1kg cherry tomatoes

• 2 red onion

• 4 garlic cloves

• Salt and pepper

• 3 vegetable stock cubes

• 750ml - 1 litre boiled water

• 100ml cream

Equipment

• Chopping board

• Knife

• Baking tray, you will probably need 2 to ensure you can spread out the tomatoes

• Large saucepan

• Wooden spoon

• Measuring jug

• Hand blender, or food processor

Method

1. Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees.

2. Roughly chop the onions into quarters. Break the garlic cloves with the side of the knife, so that they are opened up, but they don’t need to be minced.

3. Put the tomatoes, onion and garlic into the baking trays, douse generously with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Mix together to ensure that the ingredients are well distributed.

4. Place into the oven and roast for 20 minutes. After ten, give the trays a shake.

5. Then reduce the temperature to 150 degrees and cook for a further 15-20 minutes.

6. Once the tomatoes have soften and taken on plenty of golden colour, remove from the oven and transfer to the large saucepan.

7. Dissolve your stock cubes into 750ml of boiled water, then add this to the saucepan. Bring to the boil and allow to gently simmer for about 5 minutes.

8. Remove the saucepan from the heat and - for safer blending - allow to cool slightly. Then get your hand blender and blitz to a smooth soup. If it is too thick, gradually add a bit more water.

9. Once you’re satisfied with the consistency, stir through the cream. Check the seasoning, and add any more salt and pepper to taste.

10. Warm through to serve immediately, or allow to fully cool and store in the fridge for up to a few days for reheating and enjoying later. (And I’d, naturally, encourage you to make my bread rolls as the perfect dipping implement).