Friday, Jan 11th, 2013

Tonight's Dinner was Homemade Tomato Soup with Meatball Poppers. 

Tomato Soup
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1⁄2 medium yellow onion, diced
3 stalks celery, cut into small dice
1 roasted red pepper, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Kosher salt
1 – 28 oz can organic, no salt added tomato puree
1 cup low sodium vegetable broth
1⁄2 teaspoon kosher salt
1⁄4 teaspoon black pepper

A day (or more) ahead of time, roast the red pepper
To roast red pepper
1. Wash and dry 1 red bell pepper. Blacken the skin on all sides over an open flame - you can also place it on a baking sheet and roast it under the broiler.
2. Once the pepper is black and charred on all sides, place it into a zip loc bag or in a bowl covered with plastic wrap. Allow to sit for 10-15 minutes, remove, and peel away the skin over the sink. Remove and discard the stem and seeds and store the pepper in the refrigerator for later in the week.

     Heat a soup pot over medium heat and add oil. Once the oil is hot add in the onions, celery, and roasted red pepper. Season with paprika and oregano and a sprinkle of kosher salt. Sweat the vegetables for 2-3 minutes or until the onions are translucent and begin to soften.
     Add in tomato puree, vegetable broth,and salt & pepper. Reduce heat to low/medium and simmer for 5 minutes.
     Remove the soup from the heat and carefully puree it in small
batches in a blender or food processor until smooth. Return to
pot and simmer for an additional 5 minutes.
Serve warm.






For the Meatball Poppers, I followed the recipe, for the most part except for I just placed each meatball onto a triangle, sprinkled some mozzarella cheese on top, then folded the two corners in before I rolled it up towards the pointy end. Then I pinched closed any gaps on the side.   I used the meatballs that I had slow cooked in spaghetti sauce yesterday for this, so they had a little sauce, which was perfect.



The kids used the soup as a dipper for their Meatball Poppers, whereas Dad & I ate the soup with a spoon AND dunked our Popper in it!