“Slow-Roasted Tomato Soup: Two Ways” from “Notes From My Kitchen Table”

Maureen: Tomato soup! My favourite.

Tim: Yuck. No thank you. (As he eats the leftover vegetarian chilli instead.)

Maureen: I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Tomato soup is great. What do you boys think?

Andrew (13): It’s OK. It’s not my absolute favourite, but it’s feeding me.

Nicholas (9): I’m really not in the mood for this. I want something I can chew on.

Tim: That’s exactly how I feel, Nicholas. You know, when I was out today, getting my lunch, they had tomato soup on the menu and I thought, “That’s not a meal. That’s just hot liquid.”

Nicholas (with great drama): I really don’t like this.

Tim: We don’t need the drama, Nicholas. If you don’t like it, go make yourself a bowl of cereal instead.

Maureen: I don’t understand. I thought you liked tomato soup, Nicholas.

Nicholas: Not today, I don’t.

Maureen: This is good, but you have to realise that I love all forms of tomato soup. It brings back my childhood when we ate a lot of Campbell’s Tomato Soup, and even collected the labels for our school so we could get school equipment.

But I won’t be making this again. This was a huge faff to make. First, I had to slow roast the tomatoes for five hours– FIVE HOURS– in a very low temperature oven. Then, today, I proceeded to make tomato soup like I normally did, but there’s no way I can forget the FIVE HOUR time commitment from yesterday.

Tim: Maybe Gwyneth has someone to roast the tomatoes for her.

Maureen: That’s a distinct possibility. I think their life and our life is quite different, especially when she has so many recipes for lobster. Believe me, if I’m going to have lobster, someone else is going to do the lobster death penalty for me, not to mention how expensive it would be. But I digress. I won’t be making this again.

Cook’s Notes: Like I said FIVE HOURS to roast the tomatoes. No thanks. Frankly, I’ve got a recipe for tomato soup that’s just as good and doesn’t take nearly as long.

Quick Tomato Soup, No Five Hour Commitment Necessary: Chop up one small red onion in your mini food processor. Heat 1-2 tablespoons of garlic olive oil, add onion. Once the onion is soft and fragrant, add one can of chopped tomatoes. Depending on how thick you like your soup, add either 1/2 can or 1 can of water, vegetable stock or milk. (I went milk. Yum.) Add one teaspoon each of oregano and basil. Boil until thick. You can either puree soup or keep it chunky, depending on your preference. Done. Time taken? (including set up) 7 minutes. Even Jamie Oliver would approve.