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Garlicky Creamy Roasted Tomato Soup

As I planted garlic cloves for next year’s harvest in the chilly weather today, my hands were cold even though it was a clear sunny day after many days of rain. All I thought of is how I was going to make the garlicky creamy roasted tomato soup that warms me up inside out.

Some of my heirloom tomatoes and red bell peppers from this summer have remained sitting on a kitchen counter to ripen. This recipe is a nice way to clean up my kitchen and create some room for imminent winter vegetables.

Garlicky Creamy Roasted Tomato Soup

I always eyeball the amount of ingredients for this recipe. When I have too many tomatoes screaming to be used, the soup gets thicker. So feel free to adjust to your desired consistency using fewer tomatoes. The result is always delicious as long as you stay patient and carefully roast and semi-caramelize the vegetables.

Yields about 2.5 L

2 kg heirloom tomatoes, sliced into 1 inch pieces

2 red bell peppers, seeded and cut into 1 inch pieces

2 onions, sliced into ½ inch pieces

10 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly sliced

1 tablespoon cane sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

½ cup olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

2 stalks celery, cut into ½ inch pieces

1½ L chicken stock or vegetable stock

1 cup heavy cream, warm

Garnish

Parmesan cheese, freshly ground

Italian parsley, chopped

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Place the tomatoes and red bell peppers on a rimmed baking sheet. Scatter the onions and garlic on top. Sprinkle over the vegetables with the sugar, salt, and black pepper, and then drizzle with the olive oil, coating all the onions and tomatoes as much as possible. Roast until the tomatoes and onions are lightly charred, about 30 minutes.

Baste the liquid over the vegetables and roast for another 10 minutes.

In a large heavy bottomed pot, melt the butter and sauté the celery over medium high heat.

Add the roasted tomatoes and the liquid to the pot, and bring to a simmer.

Add the chicken stock and simmer for 30 minutes. Skim constantly.

Puree the soup in a blender or Vitamix, and return it to the pot. Add the warmed cream and simmer further to reach the desired consistency.

Adjust with salt and pepper and serve immediately with crusty bread. Garnish with the cheese and parsley.

Lovage Salmon Chowder

To tell you the truth, I’m not sure why I kept the lovage plant in my small, semi-shady backyard vegetable garden where every square inch is very precious and utilized for carefully selected vegetables (usually spinach, carrots, bok choy, arugula, etc. make the cut). Although the plant is located in an isolated area in a functionally designed garden, because it reaches 7 or so feet in height, it still cascades some shade on other plants and sprays its seed heads to the surrounding area at the end of the season, making my weeding chore painful during the following year… When it comes to the taste department, after sprinkling thin slices of leaves on salads or stirring into omelettes, I was still not too crazy about the overwhelmingly strong taste. The little plant that I received as a gift had now become a monster! I probably kept the plant just because I continued to believe that I would find a good use for it later…and three years went by.

However, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, a British celebrity chef, known for being the lead personality in the River Cottage series, came to rescue this indecisive gardener. He extolled the virtues of the lovage plant, suggesting that one of its best uses is in soup recipes. He even tantalized us by introducing the use of a hollow lovage plant stem as a stirrer for Bloody Marys! Needless to say, Hugh quickly won me over and I began thinking about which recipes would go best with lovage.

As a side note: lovage self sows at the end of season, scattering seeds all over the place, making it difficult to manage weeding if you plant with other perennials (just like fennel plants do!). I would strongly suggest that you isolate lovage in the back of garden if you don’t intend to harvest the seeds from the plant in time. The upside is that a lovage plant doesn’t seem to mind my half shady garden.

I thought something creamy would tame the lovage’s strong flavour and give body to a subtle fish dish. So I came up with this salmon chowder recipe. I used a wild Sockeye salmon that we froze after purchasing from a local fisherman last September, and of course my garden chives, which have been screaming to be eaten. It was, to my mind, surprisingly one of the best soups I have ever made! It was even better the next day, since the lovage lost its distinctive strong flavour but still lent richness and backbone to the soup. We ate with slices of sourdough country bread and, at the end of the meal, mopped the soup bowls!

Lovage Salmon Chowder

If you use potatoes instead of chickpeas, it’ll thicken the soup and will sure be good. But my potato plants haven’t sprouted from the ground yet…

Serves 4-6

2 tablespoons butter

2 strips bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1/2 cup chives, chopped

2 medium carrots, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

A few young stalks of lovage plant, thinly chopped

2/3 cup tightly packed lovage leaves, chopped

A handful of lovage leaves, thinly sliced for garnish

1 L chicken stock or vegetable stock

1 cup mushrooms, sliced into 1/4 inch pieces

1 bay leaf

2 sprigs fresh thyme

2 cups organic whole milk

400g wild sockeye salmon, pin-boned, cut into 1 inch pieces

2 cups freshly cooked or canned chickpeas

1/2 cup organic heavy cream

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Wash the vegetables, rinse, pat dry and cut according to the instructions above. Place a large heavy bottomed pot over medium high heat and melt the butter. Stir fry the bacon until almost crisp, then add garlic and crushed red pepper and continue cooking until nicely coloured. Add the chives, carrots and lovage and continue stir-frying until the vegetables become nicely coloured.

Add the stock to the pot and bring to a simmer. Skim and let simmer for 10 minutes. Add the mushrooms, bay leaf and thyme, skim if necessary, and let simmer for another 5 minutes or so.

Add the milk and the salmon, bring to a gentle boil and turn the heat down. Simmer for about 10 minutes or until the salmon is cooked. Add the chickpeas when the salmon is halfway cooked.

Add the cream, simmer for a few more minutes and adjust the taste with the salt and pepper. Serve in a bowl and sprinkle the lovage leaves on top. Serve with a loaf of good rustic bread.

Roasted Beet Borscht Soup

This is a big pot of soup for a cold rainy afternoon, which can literally occur anytime here in the Vancouver area at this time of year! You can serve this hearty soup for your guests or simply cook for two and take a day or two off from cooking over the next couple of days. The longer it cooks, the better the flavour gets so it is perfect for rainy afternoons when you can spare time for a cozy homemade meal to replenish your soul.

Some baby celery leaves from the previous year’s plant that I started from seeds have survived the freezing temperatures, and have now started to show the signs of spring! I like this soup slightly creamy but not too much. When I use heavy cream, I might omit sour cream or vice versa. It totally depends on your liking; feel free to adjust.

Roasted Beet Borscht Soup

Serves 6-8

1 pound beets

2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

2 tablespoons butter

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 large onion, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

3/4 cup potatoes, diced

8 cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock)

2 1/2 cups canned diced tomatoes

2 cups cabbage, shredded

1/3 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon or so salt

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Sour cream, for garnish

2 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped (I use whatever green leaves are available in my garden such as cilantro or chives)

Scrub the beets and remove the leaves, leaving a 1 inch stub from the top. Place them on a large piece of aluminum foil and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle with oil and seal the foil tight, then roast until they are tender when tested. Large beets may take an hour or so. Set aside and let cool

In the meantime, chop the vegetables, and heat a large heavy bottomed pot over medium-high heat to melt the butter. Sauté garlic, onion, carrots, celery and potatoes until softened and starting to colour, about 15 to 20 minutes. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Turn down the stove top to medium-low heat and skim off the foam that floats on top. Add diced tomatoes, bring to a boil and repeat the process to remove unwanted foam on the surface of the soup. Remove the skins from the beets, chop into cubes and add to the soup. Let simmer over medium-low heat for an hour with a lid, stirring occasionally.

This is the time to serve yourself a glass of wine if you haven’t yet. Take a break for a while.

The last thing to do is to shred the cabbage and add it to the soup after simmering for 1 hour. Then, let simmer for another 20 minutes. Add cream and adjust the taste with salt and pepper to your liking.

Serve in bowls, garnished with sour cream and dill.