Summer is Here!

Whoa...I was just checking out the last time I blogged about food and recipes that I've tried, and it's been awhile.  Not sure what's up with that...I think the last few months I've been so distracted with hockey, that I haven't had time to blog as much.   And homework...darn course also took up tons of my time.  Now you guys have me all to yourselves - aren't you guys lucky?!  Ha!

I've been feeding my cookbook addiction like crazy lately...I think I've added about a dozen new ones recently, including this one which I've completely fallen in love with:

I saw her promoting this cookbook on TV, and the recipe that she was demo-ing looked so good - granola, which normally isn't my thing...but it looked deelish.  I had to have this cookbook and I'm so glad I bought it - the recipes look fairly easy, tasty and pretty healthy (I know this isn't a "health" cookbook per se, but the only complaint is that I would have liked nutritional info...small thing though).  I've marked off a ton of recipes to try, and tried this awesome recipe for a fresh tomato basil soup that is amazing.  AMAZING.  Crazy easy and with the bounty of delicious tomatoes and fresh basil available at this time of year, it's definitely going to make our food rotation a lot this summer.

Farm Fresh Tomato Soup with Basil - from In My Mother's Kitchen by Trish Magwood

Serves 4 - 6

3 tbsp butter
1 large onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, chopped
4 large ripe tomatoes, peeled and cut into chunks (about 4 cups)
1/2 cup packed fresh basil leaves
1 tbsp sugar
salt and pepper to taste
3 cups good quality vegetable or chicken stock
Chopped chives or parsley for garnish

In a 3 quarter saucepan, melt butter over medium heat.  Add onion and carrot, cok, stirring until onion is soft, about 10 minutes.  Stir in tomatoes, basil, sugar, salt and pepper and stock.  Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.  Using a hand blender, puree until smooth.  Serve garnished with fresh herbs. 

As Ina says - how easy is that?  Ha!  My notes - I used Kitchen Basics low sodium chicken stock, which we really like as I can adjust the salt.  I'm sure you could sub the butter with olive oil and it would still taste good, but I think the butter really added another level to this soup.  I don't cook with butter often, but I think because there's so few ingredients in this dish, that the extra flavour and sweetness really comes through and adds a lot to the soup.

Yum.