Tomato Soup

Captain's Log

Behold: Last culinary venture in our old apartment

Hi Everyone! It's been a couple of weeks, and I apologize for that. We just moved, as I may have mentioned, and we have pesky jobs, and, well... here's another recipe that I love! I made it in the old apartment. A couple of weeks ago. We're full-time in the new place now. Next post should have awesome lighting, yay!

I first made this tomato soup for a group of our friends while vacationing in the Poconos. We had it with grilled cheese, as one generally must do when eating tomato soup. I started with this recipe from Emeril Lagasse and I've since tinkered and changed it so it better suits my needs. (I do NOT make the grilled cheese from Emeril's recipe. Not for any particular reason. I'm a GC traditionalist myself... all I need is bread, butter, cheddar, and maybe a clove of garlic to rub over the toasty bread edges at the end.)

Here's Emeril's recipe unedited, from the Food Network:

• 2 T unsalted butter
• 3 oz prosciutto, chopped
• 3/4 c onion, chopped
• 1/2 c celery, chopped
• 1/2 c carrot, chopped
• 3/4 tsp garlic, minced
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 c tomato paste
• 2 T flour
• 2 c peeled, seeded, chopped tomatoes
• 3 c vegetable or chicken broth
• 1/3 c heavy cream
• salt/pepper

The recipe also involves apple cider vinegar and sugar, cooked together until it's a light caramel and then stirred into the soup at the end as a sweet/tart balancer. I don't do this. It confuses me.

Blackberry Peach Shrub

Captain's Log

The Girlcat

aka the "hers" cocktail from our wedding

Here it is! Here's how the sausage was made! See my earlier post on shrubs for a full explanation of what we're working with.

We bought three (or four?) boxes of blackberries from Pike Place Market. One box is about six pints. But we only got one such box at a time since the process was a mess and labor-intensive. We wanted to work with the freshest fruit possible. So we would buy one palate of berries, process it, wait a week or two, then buy another.