I have had a problem for a few months already, but it is one of those good problems – how to eat all the beautiful produce I get?!
In Estonia summers are rather short, which means that most of the crop is at its best at the same time – zucchini, tomatoes, cucumber, kale, you name it! And, even if I have my rooftop garden, my mother’s garden, and my grandmother's garden, I still also like to go to the farmers market too, because, well, I love going to the market to look at the abundance of produce. I do need to hold myself back with shopping, though.
I hate throwing away food and always try to eat everything from root to leaf, so I always try to make the most of everything I have. Oh, I wish I could somehow spread the harvest over the whole year! But I can’t, so this time of year my 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day is easily 15 or 20 portions of fruit and veggies, and everything else has to wait until I run out (although I do miss lentils and pasta already).
This soup here is a wonderful way to use up tomatoes. I used ripe sweet yellow tomatoes, but you can do this soup also from the underripe storebought tomatoes because cooking turns them more delicious anyway. I love the spices in my tomato soup, and adding these makes it a perfect autumn soup. Imagine the pouring rain and then you enjoying your hot bowl of soup inside. It's nice!
Oh and by the way – tomatoes are even healthier once they are cooked because the lycopene content in them increases once cooked!
Lightly Spiced Tomato Soup
Serves: 2
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
1 large onion
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp ground coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin (I used whole, but ground is ok too)
6 large tomatoes
7 oz (vegan) cream cheese
Salt and pepper
Herbs to serve
Directions:
Peel and chop the onion, heat oil in a bottom of a saucepan and sweat the onions with a tiny bit of salt for 5-7 minutes on low heat.
Then add spices to the same pot and heat a few more minutes until the whole kitchen is fragrant.
Chop the onions. I used beautiful ripe yellow tomatoes from my grandmother's garden, but use whatever you happen to have – even slightly under-ripe vegetables work for this recipe. Add them to the pot with the rest of the ingredients, cover with the lid and forget about them for 10 minutes.
Turn down the heat, add cream cheese, and blend with a stick blender. If you happen to have a blender with a glass jug that takes the heat, you can use a normal blender too. Anyway – be extra careful since this is one of the hottest things on earth.
Once blended season with salt and pepper, have a taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.
Serve with your favorite herbs. I used cilantro, but parsley, basil, and even spring onions work well too.
By Kadri Raig
Kadri is a food blogger and yoga teacher from Estonia. She loves healthy food and cooking and for her, these two are often the same thing. Cooking meals from scratch, you know exactly what goes in it and even without holding back with sugar or fat we end up using a lot less compared to ready-made frozen stuff from the supermarket.
She does love to spend time in the kitchen, but most of her recipes are simple and don’t take more than 20 minutes of active cooking time. She thinks that everybody can find time to cook healthy food at home, it is just a question of planning. "I work in an office full time, teach yoga 7-8 hours a week and write a blog. So if I manage to cook most of my meals, then so do you!" Connect with Kadri and enjoy many more of her delicious healthy recipes on her website here: http://www.kahvliga.ee/.
Want some yoga to enjoy before or after your delicious tomato soup? Practice some of these top-rated FREE yoga and meditation classes, now!
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