‘Tater ‘Mater Soup

   One of the best things about volunteering on organic farms is having free access to all of the beautiful, fresh produce. We cook with these ingredients daily, and come up with some pretty creative dishes in the process. At Green Market Farm there are usually quite a few extra tomatoes lying around. As mentioned in a previous post, there are 8,000 tomato crops presently growing on the farm, and each one produces at least 20 pounds of fruit. That’s a whole lot of tomatoes. To help clean up the excess, the farm volunteers make salads, sandwiches, or just eat them raw. Last night, we made a delicious soup, and named it ‘Tater ‘Mater Soup. 

I usually don’t follow strict measurements when I’m cooking. I like to taste and tweak as I go, but I’ll try my best to share the recipe so others might enjoy this mellow, light soup.

Tools:

-A large stock pot

-A hand blender. If you don’t have one, you can use a regular blender

Ingredients:

-About 7 or 8 medium tomatoes, quartered. I used yellow taxi tomatoes, but I’m sure any type would work. 

-2 large potatoes

-2-3 table spoons of olive oil

-1/2 cup cream

-two handfuls of basil, chopped

-a pinch of cayenne, or more if you like a lot of heat. Do it to your taste

-4 cloves of garlic, chopped fine, or put through a microplane grater. 

-Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Put all of the tomatoes and potatoes into the stock pot, then fill the pot 3/4 full with water. Add olive oil, and bring to a boil. Lower heat a little, but keep the soup at a low boil. Add garlic, cayenne, salt and pepper. The potatoes/tomatoes should soften within 20 minutes. I like to remove the tomato skins as they boil to ensure a creamy texture. When soft, add the cream. Then, use a hand blender to blend the soup. If you only have a regular blender, pour the soup in, blend, and return it to the pot. Lower heat and let sit for twenty minutes so the flavors meld. When serving, sprinkle fresh chopped basil on top. Enjoy!!

PS: Make sure to have some fresh bread with this.