Recipe Corner: Cream of Tomato Soup

We got a load of end-of-summer tomatoes from Luscher Farms earlier this week and the day was just dreary enough to warrant making soup so Darren broke out our favorite Italian cookbook, The Silver Spoon, and found this recipe for Crema di Pomodoro. Darr recommends using an immersion blender (see pic) instead of transferring the soup to a food processor to process to a purée.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 1/4 pounds plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and sliced
2 potatoes, diced
scant 1/2 cup heavy cream
salt and pepper
Parmesan cheese, freshly grated, to serve
croutons, to serve

Directions:
Melt the butter in a pan. Add the onion and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally for five minutes, until softened. Add the tomatoes and cook for fifteen minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste, pour in three cups water, add the potatoes and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for one hour. Use an immersion blender and process the soup to a purée. Reheat, then stir in the cream. Serve with Parmesan and croutons (both optional).

Serves 4