Cream of Tomato Soup: Redux

Okay so get this: on Friday morning, I was rudely phone-alarmed awake for work, and it was completely dark outside. Dark. Outside. Like, night time. The sky outside was the same colour it was when I went to bed. That's never okay. Granted, it was 6 am, and we are rapidly approaching the tail-end of October. This happens every year, right? But for some reason I'm finding it hard to deal with this year.

And it's cold in the mornings! This is an outrage! It's colder now than I remember it being all last winter. This is partly because I have a terrible memory, and considerably less body fat than I did months ago. This, coupled with the nonexistent underwhelming UK summer this year means I've been cold since July.

But never mind all that now because it also means that SOUP SEASON is upon us!

Ahh soup, it's so just so easy. It gets made a lot in our home. Sometimes the tinned form makes an appearance too. Including those little red tins of Heinz cream of tomato. There was a certain point in my childhood where I was having cream of tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch every day.* I'm sure I wasn't the only one. So when I saw a discarded tin in our flat the other day, I wondered if I dared try to recreate a home-made version to have for lunch. A cream of tomato soup redux, if you will.

Well I did dare. And guess what? It turned out well. Really, really well. Oh my god, so well.

Do you want to hear the best part? Of course you do. There's no cream in it. I still have this book left over from my Vegan Days, and despite the woeful lack of food photos, it's one of the best cookbooks out there. I remembered there was a creamy tomato soup recipe in there. Score!

The secret to the creamy consistency is the humble potato (and the hand blender helps too, I guess), but I decided that I was using sweet potatoes. I also used sun dried tomatoes in oil (well-rinsed and dried for a bit in the oven) instead of the plain sun dried whole tomatoes the recipe explicitly called for. The soup turned out well despite these little alterations. I pretty much forced everyone who set foot in the flat this past weekend to try this soup, including a friend I hadn't seen in 8 years ("You're still a loon Sophs"). Anyway, the feedback was all positive so i'll be making this a lot. Let me know if you want the recipe. Or just go buy the Veganomicon. Even if you aren't vegan, or a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, it'll totally be worth your while.

*Okay, not every day. The tomato soup was in a rotation with split pea and clam chowder.

Po-tay-toes, fried.

I went out to a work thing the other night. With drinks. Then I came home. There were lots of people in the house. Then I fell asleep in our alcove. Then I got woken up when everyone else was going to bed. Got into bed fully dressed. There are few things more gross than waking up at 10 in the morning in your jeans with the full lipstick-and-eyeliner things still happening on your face. Anyway, I woke up and I immediately wanted food. Something starchy. There's a surprise. Ideally I wanted noodles, but a) I always want noodles and b) our fridge and cupboards were woefully empty. No noodles for Sophie then.

There were three things in the fridge that were not condiments: onions, garlic, and potatoes. This meant I was going to have to bust out the pan and actually do some chopping. But I thought to myself: hey, I can work with these three ingredients. Because I'm German. Germans are good at potatoes. Especially at frying them in oil.

Granted, it's a pretty simple recipe, but the main reason I'm putting this up on das blog is that people often forget about the joys of fried potatoes. Also, you can pretty much make this for any meal. They're a stand-in for hash browns (breakfast), and obviously it's not difficult to imagine having them for lunch and dinner, maybe with a nice salad. Simon and I had them with veggie sausages the other night, because I was not allowed to make mashed potatoes for him.

The whiskey had nothing to do with this, I promise. Move along, people.

I had mine with cheapo supermarket coleslaw on that morning, which was alriiight but…. Okay I'll save the coleslaw rant for another day. Suffice to say it's high time I started making my own again.

You will need:

A pan. The bigger the better. It's not easy to achieve nice evenly browned potatoes in a tiny pan. You're constantly stirring to give all your little potato friends a chance to make direct contact with the pan, whilst at the same time trying not to turn them into a mushy mess from all that stirring.

Potatoes, halved lengthwise, then sliced thinly (see photo). The amount really is up to you. Who am I to tell you how many potatoes you want to eat? You gotta make your own choices once in awhile.

Onion. A really big one, halved, then sliced thinly. 

Garlic, minced. A whole bulb. No, just trust me on this. If you really are sceptical, then by all means just toss in 2-3 little segments worth. But you'll be depriving yourself of delicious garlicky potato goodness. Not my problem.

Olive oil. 

Pepper and salt, and some paprika to make it look pretty, and to make you feel better about eating yet another meal that is entirely brown. I'm only human.

How you do:

Pour a healthy glug of olive oil into the pan, whack in your sliced potatoes. Stir intermittently so that all the slices are coated and have a chance to fry. When the potatoes are just about starting to brown, throw in the onion and garlic. I recommend not doing it before then, otherwise the onions will start to go slightly black and charred… they just don't need to be in for as long as the taters. I learned this by doing it myself, as you may have noticed. Salt/pepper/paprika. Guten Appetit.

PS: We have food in the house now. All is well again.