Sunday Suppers: Curried Tomato Soup, or Soft Food for the Toothless, Part Dos

This is the Very Soup that I made to sustain The Beloved during his Convalescence from Endodontic Manglings. But, it is so good that I probably would make it again, just because it’s a Tuesday, or a Sunday, or because I’m hungry. As usual, there is no real recipe, as I just sling stuff together until I like it. Please feel free to substitute ingredients at will, lik a Mad Scientist. For example, you could certainly use chicken or beef stock in place of the water. I would use stock normally, but since I had a can of nice San Marzano tomatoes, I wanted to highlight their sweetness without the gelatiny goodness of stock getting in the way. You could certainly leave out the mushrooms, add cream, use dill for an herbal note, add rice instead of quinoa or almost any other changes you can think of that would make sense to you. Heck, you could even make some dumplings and add them. Don’t bother to puree it, if you don’t feel like it. All I’m saying is to have fun. Don’t you dare print out this “recipe” and go to the store because I used some curry powder and you don’t have any. Just leave it out and make some soup already! I didn’t go to the store for any of these ingredients–I already had them on hand. This is convenience food, pure and simple.

Curried Tomato Soup

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• olive oil
• salt and pepper, to taste
• white balsamic vinegar, maybe 2 TBSP
• about 2 tsp curry powder
• 1 TBSP honey
• about 1 tsp dried Italian Seasoning (hey, it’s winter–sue me)
• large handful of button mushrooms, cleaned and chopped
• 2 large cans tomatoes (mine were whole tomatoes, one San Marzano, one “regular”)
• water, maybe 1 1/2 cups
• small handful quinoa

Here’s how it goes:

1. Heat a large-ish pot over medium heat.
2. Add the oil. Let the oil get hot.
3. Turn the heat down a bit and add the onions.
4. Stir around and sweat the onions for a couple of minutes.
5. Add some salt and pepper, and throw in the mushrooms.
6. Cook until the mushrooms have given up their liquid and have started to turn a light golden brown in places.
7. Add the curry powder and stir it around to toast for a minute or two.
8. Add a squirt of honey, and then add the vinegar and cook off until dry.
9. Add the tomatoes, juices and all.
10. Mash up and heat through.
11. Taste and add more salt and pepper. It will need it.
12. Add some water or broth/stock if your soup is too thick.
13. With an immersion blender, puree the soup until smooth. This will take a few minutes. Yes, puree the mushrooms, too. Puree the whole thing.
14. You can strain this through a fine strainer to get it completely smooth. I didn’t. If I weren’t adding quinoa, or if I were making it for a fancy dinner party, I probably would have.
15. Add more liquid, if necessary. Taste and adjust seasonings.
16. Add in a small handful of quinoa or barley or rice or even canned beans–whatever sounds good–and simmer until tender.
17. I usually add more extra virgin olive oil at the end, to enrich the soup, but you certainly don’t have to.
18. Eat.

I know that looks like a lot of steps, but, I swear it took fewer than 20 minutes of active chopping/adding/futzing about with time plus another 20-30 minutes of letting it heat/cook/simmer. You know what? You could even make this in the crock pot. Throw everything in the pot in the morning and come home to soup. All you’ll have to do is puree (if you want to) and the faster-cooking ingredients (grains, beans) when you get home.

And there you have it. Consider this a loose template for almost any tomato soup you can dream up. Take this version and make it your own. The sky is the limit.