Easy Cream of Tomato Soup

Winter has definitely arrived and its cold in London. It still seems to be Soup Saturday (I have no idea when this started but I'm not bored with it yet - or had to make the same soup twice!). This Saturday, tomato soup. There are so many ways to make this, from roasting tomatoes, to using tinned. Here I done a mixture of both.

Ingredients:

1 onion, peeled & chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled & chopped
1 small carrot, peeled & chopped
1 tbsp. oil
1 tbsp. tomato puree
400g tin tomatoes
800ml vegetable stock (cube is fine)
3 large tomatoes, halved
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. sugar
50 ml double cream

Method:

In a saucepan, fry the vegetables in the oil gently for about 10 minutes, until soft. Add the tomato puree and stir in. Now add the tinned tomatoes, stock and large tomatoes and bring to the boil. Pop on the lid and turn the heat to a simmer and leave to cook for about 20 minutes.

Spoon out the tomatoes and remove the skins. Put the tomatoes back in and blitz the soup with a hand blender, until smooth. Put back on a gentle heat and season to taste with the salt, sugar and pepper. Finally stir through the cream and heat through. Serve and enjoy! 

Note: If you have a green stalk with the tomatoes, add it to the soup as its cooking and remove it just before blending. It has so much flavour (see picture below).