Miscues, misconnections and making corrections

Remember how we were taught as children 'LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES?" I actually had one teacher who used to make us take our work, after she had corrected it, and rewrite it, especially places where we had erred. Sometimes, if the error were small enough, we had to redo it three times, to try to reinforce the message. I have had language teachers do that (Jonathan doesn't), and it works: to a point. I think the idea sits well with all of us: the idea that somehow, by looking at the mistake, and writing the correct thing, over and over again, it will sit with us. But if you're like me (Oh, heaven forbid, but I think on this one I have company), after a while, you begin to resent this. You KNOW it's good for you, but "WHY THE HELL DO I HAVE TO WASTE MY TIME DOING IT?" And somehow, the connection between doing it over and learning it breaks, and it's just "busy work." Know what I mean?
I have been thinking about that because I tried to make the roasted tomatoes I wrote about on March 10, again. I looked at the recipe, thought back to what I did, and tried a few things. I REALLY cleaned out the tomatoes, dried them with paper towel, kicked the oven up another 25 degrees, and made sure they had plenty of space on the baking sheet.

And for a second time, I got moosh. (that's sort of a cross between mush and and something else). BUT.... Annalena had a plan. Yes, she did. This is a GOOD thing when you're working with something that you have a feeling may not work out right. Annalena decided that, if the tomatoes did not work, she would make soup. This decision was borne out by many factors, including the fact that, at this point, I am "souped out." Normally, I make soup on the weekend, and by Wednesday I am set with what the soup will be.

Not the last couple of weeks. Uh uh. I have been a total "space vacuum" for soup recipes. I think I've made every "winter soup" recipe that I can think of. And yes, I know it's that time when Guy, the soup king of the Village is looking at the idea of soup with more than a bit of a jaded eye. He suggested the chicken soup we had last week (BLESS HIM), but this week, he too, was out of ideas.

So, the two batches of moosh tomatoes became soup. And you know what? "It's a good thing." It really is. So, let's proceed.

Now, I almost never do this, but it's appropriate. Go back to the entry on March 10 and review it. You're going to make a double batch of those tomatoes. If your oven is "stable" you can do both batches at the same time. If not, one after the other, and it will take you an hour. While they're baking, chop up one large onion, roughly, and two large stalks of celery. Another review. The "holy trinity" of soup making is onion, carrot and celery. And, like many variant sects of Christianity, you can alter these (Yes, I speak as a confirmed heretic). In tomato soup, I leave out the carrot. Why, you may ask?

AH. She's been quiet lately, but Sue has her hand up, and of course, she's right. Yes, the roasted tomatoes are sweet. So are the carrots. The onions have more sugar in them, but we're not going to cook them long enough to release them. But carrots give up their sugar real easily, so we leave them out, and we proceed with the onion and the celery. Saute' them in a few tablespoons of good olive oil, just to the point when they're soft. Then let them sit while the tomatoes are finising. When they're done, dump them into the pot with the veggies and oil. Scrape as much off of the baking sheet as you can. Now, add your stock. Chicken stock is the one I use; however, since one of my new cooking buddies doesn't touch the stuff, I was thinking of options. This is a soup where I would NOT use canned or boxed vegetable stock, because I find it too sweet. I think that if you had tomato juice, and diluted it half way with water, you'd be fine. OR, you could just use water and up the seasonings (I'm about to come to that).

If you have done the variation with pesto that I wrote about (I TOLD you to review), you need no other seasoning. If you did not, however, I would suggest a few sprigs of fresh thyme in this pot of soup. Let it simmer for twenty minutes or so, to let the tomatoes break down even further. Then, let it cool, because this is a VERY hot pot of soup.

When it's cool, if you can find the sprigs of thyme, pull them out. Then ladle the soup into a blender, no more than about three cups at a time, and puree it until it's fairly smooth. You are going to get an orangey/pink product here, which is very pretty to look at. Pour this all back into the pot and...

TASTE IT. You may very well need some salt, or some pepper. You did season along the way, but what could it hurt?

This will go extremely well with croutons of some kind. I have left over cheddar cheese bread croutons, and also rye bread. They both sound "right." As does a grilled cheese sandwich, doesn't it?

This was a weekend of missed communications, missed messages, missed phone calls, and just plain missing. The soup helped to plug the holes caused by all of this. Like a leaky damn, it doesn't fix anything, but for a little while, it will make you feel good.

You'll get about six cups of soup out of this, more than enough for three big portions. And you'll be glad you made it.

Now, just sit back and think for a minute: you started with six pounds of tomatoes, and you got six CUPS of soup. Remember that ratio: a pound to a cup.

If you order tomato soup and it's good, never complain about the price again.