Tomato Basil - Soup or Sauce ? Your Choice!
This recipe was conceived years ago, when I was a little overwhelmed with our season of babies. I look back now and want to laugh at myself, but isn’t that how it works. Starting something new, like motherhood, can be an overwhelming experience. I remember one day that I was struggling to keep up and our friendly neighbor had knocked on our door to give me a wonderful gift of a whole crate to fresh, ripe tomatoes. He was so excited to give them to me and I really wanted to be excited to get them, but the reality was I was in no position to boil jars, peel, and core. I was just hoping to get some semblance of dinner onto the table. I decided to experiment I figured they would ruin anyway if I waited. So I just threw them all on the pan with some garlic and basil and roasted the heck out of them and then just tossed them into the Vitamix. Yes, cores, peels, the whole shebang. It was delicious and was an immediate family favorite.
So here is my fast and easy way to quickly process a lot of tomatoes, with no peeling or coring required. You can also do this with a smaller batch and just adjust down the ingredients. The amounts here a are very flexible, don't stress trying to get the ratios perfect. If you have a lot of other produce around like onions or zucchini feel free to tuck them in as well, just remember the tomato is the star of the show, so don't over do it.
The result can be eaten as a smooth and creamy Tomato Basil Soup or a delicious Pasta Sauce.
To preserve large batches we used to freeze these into some of the large silicone molds for individual portions of soup and large ice cube trays for individual pasta servings. I also freeze it gallon bags for family size portions.
This year I decided to experiment and see how it does in the freeze dryer and it is amazing. I freeze dry it and then blend into powder. This is can be a hot bowl of Tomato Basil Soup in seconds or sprinkled over pasta and instantly becomes a delicious marinara. In our house of whole foods, my kids are constantly begging for quick lunches that don’t have to be cooked. This fits the bill perfectly!