Tomato Soup

I mentioned recently that I was going to try my hand at making tomato soup from scratch.  I'm happy to report that the trial was a success and I learned some good things along the way!

It was some work, but I have reasoning behind my madness... My kids eat drink tomato soup like nothing else! We eat it a lot for lunch, and even have it for dinner sometimes when my meal planning falls through.  Tomato soup isn't expensive, so I'm not saving buckets by making it homemade, but there's a lot of junk in it that I'd rather my kids not have.  The one I made was simple, just tomatoes, chicken stock, a bit of basil and onions and about 30 minutes simmering.  The full recipe came from The Williams-Sonoma Collection: Soup.

The thing that kept me from making the soup for so long was the peeling and seeding of the tomatoes.  I'd never done that before and had no clue what to expect.  I shouldn't have been scared at all.  It's super easy!  Here's how I did it:

First, I scored each tomato with an X on the bottom and plopped them into boiling water for about 30 seconds (15 seconds on the top, 15 seconds on the bottom)

 From there, the skin literally peels right off!  I was amazed!

Super easy!

To get the seeds out, just cut each tomato in half and squeeze them out... you'll have to repeat this process by halving each half again, but it's a breeze.

Look at that!  Peeled and seeded tomatoes!

Now, go forth and make soup!