Monday, July 29, 2013

Making Vegetable Soup From Fresh Grape or Cherry Tomatoes

I've been playing with my food again.....

Our grape tomato vine is still going strong, but has slowed down a little.  However, one can only eat so many in salads.  I had to find some other way to use them up.

Tomatoes on the counter ripening.

A little experimenting with cooking them yielded a pot of soup for now and one for later.  They are delicious in this soup and I would think in other tomato dishes like chili.  I cooked them alone first by cutting them in half and adding a little water.  Once they were done I added some browned ground beef, 1/2 small can of tomato paste, one can of mixed vegetables (undrained) and enough water to cover it all.   Then it simmered for a while and made a wonderful meal.

Delicious and Nutritious
One half of this batch was used in the vegetable soup above and I was able to put a starter meal in the freezer for later using the other half.   All I will have to do is add a can of mixed vegetables and a little water.  This one is earmarked for the first cool day in the fall. 

The other half of the meat, tomatoes and  tomato paste for the freezer.
 
There are lots of healthy vitamins in this soup. All of the ingredients were in my pantry or freezer.   I was worried that the little tomato skins would come off when cooked, since I remove the skins on larger tomatoes before cooking them.  They didn't.  There were little chunks of tomatoes, but no loose skins.   This makes using the grape tomatoes in soup very easy!

7 comments:

Angela said...

What a good idea! I love cherry tomatoes but there is only so many you can eat. I do pasta with some and last year I tried drying some. They were wonderful on pizza! Angela

Mary Ann said...

Yum! I want to be sure and plant cherry tomatoes next year--I just love eating them by the pint! We've been buying them at the farmer's market for the last few weeks.

They would also be good marinated (probably cut in half) in a salad with mozzarella and fresh basil.

If you like shish kebabs, tiny tomatoes are good threaded on skewers with chunks of other vegetables and meat.

Auntie M said...

SUPER GOOD, AND SUPER PLANNING FOR A FUTURE MEAL.

Little Penpen said...

I wondered about the skins too. I will def. try this!

Jill said...

Thanks for the idea. I've canned a ton of these this year, but I'm ready to do something different.

ancient one said...

These volunteer every year for us. I had always used them in salad. Never thought of cooking them (skin issue)... but yours looked good. They are running late this year but we have plenty of bushes.

Meggie said...

I am surprised about the skins...the soup looks so yummy. When cooking soup or casseroles, I always try to save some for the freezer. They make for fast meals...

Glimpses of Home - first quarter of 2021

I made a list of my 2021 goals that I wrote down in the back of my planner.  Its time to review that to see how I am doing! But, here are a ...