Today began slightly hungover. I had a couple of girlfriends over for dinner last night and the wine consumption was a little obscene. So this morning me and my headache needed to be resuscitated. After some greasy eggs for breakfast I felt the need for some vitamins! When I was at the grocery store the eggplant looked so beautiful I took that as my inspiration.
With that in mind I checked out a couple of books for ideas – there were two recipes that certainly contributed to the end product. One is actually a dip with roasted red peppers in the Barefoot Contessa cookbook and the other was actually a soup with roasted red peppers from Soup which I currently have out of the library. Of course, having just made several dishes with roasted red peppers I really wasn’t in the mood for more so I left those out.
This month Alanna at a Veggie Venture is focusing on soups. She already has a ton of really nice soups contributed from the blogging community posted here. What a good time to do it too when it is all dreary outside. I actually am drinking some of my soup out of a mug as I write this to help keep me warm.
(makes 4-6 servings)
1 globe eggplant, peeled and chopped into 1″ cubes
10 roma tomatoes, cored and quartered
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper
4 cups vegetable stock, or chicken stock
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, minced
1. Toss together the eggplant, tomatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper and garlic in a bowl to combine. Spread on a baking sheet and roast in a 400F oven for 40 minutes, turning every 15 minutes.
2. Put roast fruit into a food processor and pulse 2 or 3 times (you want chunky.)
3. In a soup pot combine with stock, sugar and tomato paste. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Serve garnished with parsley.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Katerina ~ Thanks so much for the contribution! Soup can indeed be its own elixir!
Oh Katerina, you are so innovative. I mean a tomato and eggplant soup is so creative not to mention delicious sounding. You are a brilliant cook. But have you ever tried Michael Chiarello’s tomato soup? It’s a great recipe that requires roasting the tomatoes in a smoking hot oven with balsamic vinegar. It results in a sweet soup with a 2-note acidic bite. I can’t wait to try your recipe.
No I haven’t, but I looked it up and it looks good! ( I assume this is the one – http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_29730,00.html ?)
http://dailyunadventures.blogspot.com/2006/02/my-homemade-tomato-soup.html.
It is kinda halfway between this recipe and my other, super simple tomato soup recipe – because the tomatoes are roasted. I will definitely try that one the next time I am sick.
Actually, it’s this one, the one you had sounds good too but there’s cream in it and I’ve always felt that cream takes away from the real flavor of tomato. This recipe is cream-less.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_31881,00.html
I'm planning to make this for dinner tonight. I think I'll try to shoot it, but I don't think it will be as pretty as your picture!