I Love Tomatoes

This time of year, fresh tomatoes, even those sold still "on the vine," can be rather tasteless. Even the ones we canned ourselves last summer are gone by now. Never fear; commercially canned ones can work just fine.

Inspired by ThePinkPeppercorn, I made a take-off of her friend's recipe for roasted tomato soup. As Gail said, the basic recipe can be customized, and it's really good. I'm not going to repeat that basic recipe here -- read it on Ms. Peppercorn's blog.

My version is probably a little thicker than Gail's, but I like it that way, if it's going to make for a filling dinner, with half a grilled cheese and ham on foccacia sandwich. All I aim to do here, is mention what I did differently.

• used four 14.5 oz. cans of tomatoes, two of which were "stewed," and two of which were "diced," with all the juice
  
• used two medium-sized onions
• used four cloves of garlic, sliced, with the butt end cut off for the trash bin
• added basil, which got whoosed with the rest, at the end, so you can't really see it in the picture
  
• rushed it a little, using six hours in a 225F oven, after the initial stovetop treatment
• used grated romano to "garnish" it
  

I happened to use a well-seasoned cast iron dutch oven, for no other reason than it'd fit into my oven better than a tall stockpot. Cast iron is priceless for certain types of cooking, although perhaps any old slow cooker would have done just as well with this one.

Add to that bowl of soup one 3" x 3" grilled ham and cheese, and you've got a rib-sticking dinner.