fresh from the garden: Oven Roasted Tomato Basil Soup

Our tomatoes took a little longer to ripen this summer for some reason but they are finally ready and there are a lot of them.

Mr. Wonderful likes to make big batches of fresh tomato sauce each summer and then freeze it for later use. We are still doing that however he decided last week to try making some fresh Oven Roasted Tomato Basil Soup as well since we had so many ripe tomatoes all at once. 

We also have plenty of fresh basil too so he picked a handful to put in the soup.

Most of our tomatoes this year are Roma which are great for cooking and perfect for sauce and soup. He sliced a bunch in half and spread them out, skin side down, on a large baking pan along with some cloves of garlic. The first time he tried lining the pan with parchment paper but decided not to use it on the second batch and did not notice a difference in taste, texture or clean up. 

The tomatoes were baked at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes or until the tomatoes and cloves were beginning to brown. 

In the meantime, he sliced up a couple onions.

Then he cooked them in a little olive oil until they began to brown.

Once the onions were ready he added the roasted tomatoes, garlic and all the juice from the baking pan and then blended it all together. It was absolutely wonderful. In fact, he made another batch the following day but this time he removed all the tomato skins after baking which we both liked a little better. 

Either way it turned out great and I am sure he will be making it again and freezing some just in time for fall. My hope is that he will write it down so that I can make a batch now and then however it is really nice when he does the cooking.

Happy Wednesday!