Roast Tomato Soup

I watched James Martin do this soup and fell in love with the idea. This soup is so delicious that it can even be enjoyed cold!! We loved it. It bursts with flavours…the better tomatoes you can get the better soup you will produce. The olive oil quality does its part as well so make sure you use a good quality one. You can serve it with some crème fraîche, crispy croutons, grated Parmesan and/or some fresh hand torn basil leaves. It is very easy to prepare. The trickiest part is peeling the roasted tomatoes…make sure you let them cool well as you can easily scald your fingers. So you will need…

Serves 4

·         800g tomatoes, cut in half
·         3 tbsp runny honey
·         2 sprigs fresh thyme
·         1 onion, thinly sliced
·         2 garlic cloves, chopped
·         8 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Freshly grated Parmesan, to serve

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 230 °C.
2. Put the tomatoes on a baking tray, drizzle with the honey and about 2 tbsp of the olive oil. Roast for about 20 minutes.
3. When roasted, set the tomatoes aside to cool. When cool enough, carefully peel off the skins, then chop the tomatoes and thyme leaves. Set aside.
4. Heat 2 tbsp of the olive oil in a saucepan, add the onion, cover with a lid and cook for about 4 minutes or until transparent and soft. Add the garlic and fry for a further 3 minutes. Turn off the heat.
5. Throw the tomatoes, thyme, about 75ml water and the remaining 4 tbsp olive oil into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.
6. Season with salt & pepper.
7. Reheat the soup if necessary, ladle into the bowls and serve with whatever you fancy. We prefer parmesan ;)

Enjoy!!

R&A

Blue Cheese Dip

This is one of our favourite dips ever. Once we start digging in we can never stop. Dips are so easy to prepare as basically you just throw everything in the food processor and there you have it...yum yum!!! So give this a try and impress your friends. Make sure you do not put too much onion!! Serve this with grissini (breadsticks), raw veg, crackers, galletti (water biscuits) or whatever you fancy. So, you will need...

• 150g blue cheese, cut in cubes
• 250g quark cheese or ricotta
• ¼ small onion, finely chopped
• Pinch ground white pepper
• 1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• Juice of half a lemon

Method

1. Just whiz up all the ingredients in a food processor until smooth.
2. Tip the dip into a bowl and serve.
3. If refrigerating make sure that you cover the bowl with cling film first!

Enjoy 

R&A