.roasted tomato and steak soup.

I love soup. I can eat it year round. My mom makes great soup and I seem to have always struggled with it up until the past few years. Not sure why. This is one I created one day.. I usually make a roasted tomato soup but I a little flank steak to use up and thought it would work really well together. It was great and even better the next day!


Begin by taking 5-6 vine-ripened tomatoes. Cut them in quarters and remove the seeds and gooey stuff. You want to use really good tomatoes for this soup. Don't use beefsteak. If you can find organic ones or buy them at a farmers market, even better!


Put the tomatoes in a baker with a couple cloves of garlic, a little sea salt, pepper, oregano, and a tiny sprinkle of rosemary.


Drizzle lightly with extra virgin olive oil.

Stir everything around to coat the tomatoes with the seasonings and oil. Put in a 350* oven for 30 minutes.


Pull the tomatoes from the oven. They will be nice and soft and very very fragrant. YUM!


Spoon 2/3 of the tomatoes into a blender. Make sure you put the garlic in the blender too.


Puree until smooth.


Remove the skin from the other tomatoes and chop up. Set aside.


Peel and chop 1-2 carrots.


Chop 3 celery stalks.


Dice a small onion. I used red, but only because I had one in the fridge that needed to be used up. Use whatever kind of onion you like.


Cut 1 lb flank steak into small pieces.

Flank steak is really good to use in this because it's so tender. I highly recommending using this over any other kind of cut.


Heat a little olive oil in a soup pot. Add the steak and 1 bay leaf. Cook over medium to medium high heat.


When the meat has just started browning, add the vegetables. If you want, peel and cut up some white or yukon gold potatoes and add them at this stage too. I'm trying to cut back on carbs and omitted them from my soup.


After the vegetables and meat have cooked for awhile, add 5-6 cups chicken stock.


Add 1 can great northern beans. Do not drain these before hand. Dump everything in. Dump one whole can of kernel corn into the pot too -- juice and all. This will give the soup a lot more flavor.

****I did add some frozen green beans at this stage too, but didn't get a picture of it.


Add the tomato/garlic puree.


And lastly, add the chopped tomatoes.

Season well with salt and pepper. If you want to make this more like a minestrone soup, you can add some pasta to the pot as well. Lower the heat and cover the pot with a lid. Allow this to simmer on the stove for about an hour, if not longer. You could even transfer this to a crock pot and let cook all day while you're at work. Delicious!

To serve, ladle into a bowl and top with some fresh grated parmesan or asiago cheese (I used the latter). Delicious! Enjoy!

Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_104gk8jhcfn