Papa il Pomodoro

Yesterday I made tomato soup. The recipe comes from Mark Bittman's book "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" and it was pretty fantastic. I used fresh tomatoes from the bazaar and lip-e-oshka (this is the the flat bread that Central Asians eat at every meal).

To make it I used freshly made veggie soup base which is made by frying potatoes, onions, garlic, and carrots in olive oil until they are well browned, add soy sauce (we use Braggs), and fresh parsley. When the vegetables are browned you add water and then cook for about 30 minutes more, drain off the liquid and you have an excellent veggie broth, better than anything I could buy at a store and not at all difficult to make.

Then, fry garlic, a dried red pepper (seeds and stem removed), and onion, when the onions are soft and the garlic is golden, add the tomatoes (cored, peeled, and seeded). Mix in 2 or 3 cups of veggie broth and then add the bread. I didn't have any day old bread, so I put the lip-e-oshka (its about the size of frisbee) in the oven and baked it till it was hard, cut it up into small squares and then mix it into the soup.

Since our tomatoes here are not completely in season (we've yet to get the really deep red tomatoes) I used some of the fresh tomato paste I made 3 days ago to add a bit more color and flavor.

Finally, in two more days I'm going to strain the liquid out of my hot sauce mixture. Dylan's nanny, Mohira, was able to find cheese cloth at the market.