Chunky Tomato Soup

Weeknights call for easy dinners. Thankfully, Food and Wine arrived in the mailbox when we were fresh out of ideas for dinner. Right there, on the front page, was a picture of tomato soup - perfect. Nothing like the old school combination of grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner.

Chunky Tomato Soup
Recipe inspired by Food & Wine

 

Ingredients

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 fennel bulb, trimmed and finely chopped
4 thyme sprigs
3 tablespoons tomato paste
Salt and freshly ground pepper
4 cups water
Two 28-ounce cans peeled Italian tomatoes—drained and finely chopped, juices reserved (for this I find it's easier to hand squeeze the tomatoes rather than to chop - much less clean up).
 Good quality olive oil, to garnish

 

Instructions

In a large soup pot, heat the olive oil. Add the onion, fennel and thyme and cook the vegetables over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion and fennel are softened, about 8 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add the water and the tomatoes and their juices and bring to a boil.

Simmer the soup over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is reduced by one-third, about 30 minutes. Discard the thyme.

Remove pot from heat. Blend with immersion blender and puree until smooth.  We served our soup with grilled cheese, because that's the way it should be.

Tip: make the grilled cheese in a cast iron pan. Ours got a tad burnt, but the grilled cheese comes out crispier than when cooked in a normal pan.