Roasted Tomato Soup

The extra time spent on roasting the tomatoes for this soup is worth the wait! the roasting brings out the sweetness in both the tomatoes as well as the garlic and your kitchen will smell heavenly, too. Here's what you need and what you do:

1 kg tomatoes
4 garlic cloves, minced
fresh thyme
1 onion
4 slices of country style bread, cubed
3 cups of stock
olive oil, salt, pepper

Cut your tomatoes in halves, core them if you like, and sprinkle with garlic, thyme, salt, pepper and olive oil and roast them in the oven for about 2 hours or until the skin bursts. Puree when done. I would skin the tomatoes next time, rather than fishing them out, as we did, but do as you prefer. Saute the onion and add the tomato puree, the stock, as well as the cubed bread, let simmer for a few minutes and mix with a blender. Season with (herb)salt and fresh pepper.

Additionally, you can top it off with this deliciousness: a blend of mascarpone and parmesan (equal parts of both mixed together).

n*

Cream of Garlic Soup (Knoblauchcremesuppe)

Coming home from the Christmas holidays with no shopping in the house, the pickings are slim. But, there'll always be garlic, onion and for us coffee lovers: milk. This doesn't make sense yet, but bear with me. This soup is actually quite popular in Austria and as always, I am happy to bring the good news to America...

Ingredients:
1 whole thing of garlic
1 medium onion
2 cups bouillon
2 cups milk
3 Tb flour
butter/olive oil
salt/ pepper
fresh parsley if available (I only had oregano, which was good, too)

Chop onions finely and saute together with minced garlic until soft, before adding bouillon and milk and bring to a boil. Add flour and stir constantly for about 10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste and add fresh parlsey. Done.

Chicken soup

It has gotten cold here. And with the first fall of the temperatures comes inevitably... a cold. I have been sniffling for a week now and I am planning to get rid of this cold by making the ultimate cure: chicken soup.


Ingredients:

• Chicken with bones and skin
• Your greens: parsley, a thick slice of celery root, carrots, parsnip, some leek (you can buy this here already packaged, because people actually still make their own soups)
• Garlic
• 1 yellow onion with skin
• peppercorns
• 1 tomato
• and my personal favourite herb Liebstöckl (I found these translations: Lovage, Love Parsley, Garden lovage, Bladder seed)

Bring the water to a boil with the chicken already in it (otherwise you don't get all the good stuff). Cut your onion in half and roast it on the stove. Keeping its skin will add color.

Wash all of your other ingredients (but keep a carrot and some parsley for later) and add them to the meanwhile boiling water. salt. basta. Sadly, you now have to wait for 2 hours, which I use to write up the recipe.

Once the soup is done, skim some of the fat from the chickenskin off the top. Drain your soup into another bowl and throw in some delicious noodles and the sliced carrot you saved earlier. Boil until tender. Add chicken meat, and finally before serving, add some finely chopped parsley. For an extra health kick you could grate some fresh ginger into your individual soup bowls. Eat it. Feel better.

n*