Showing posts with label local. Show all posts
Showing posts with label local. Show all posts

Natural Tomato Soup


A Healthier Soup Alternative
Tomatoes are ripe on the vine here in Ohio and since I plant my own, I have an abundance!  The smell and taste of a ripe tomato fresh from the garden is one of my favorite summer joys.
But what to do with all those tomatoes can quickly turn into a summer dilemma. 

A few years back,  good friend of my niece Sarah posted a recipe for homemade tomato soup on Facebook.  I changed the recipe after the first year by adding 1 less green bell pepper (over powers the tomatoes) and by adding 1 to 2 extra bay leaves.
I have been making it every summer since. 

It’s a pretty easy process and the soup is delicious, especially in the middle of the winter.

For best results use only fresh produce from your garden or organic produce from a local farm market.  Store purchased produce has no where near the flavor of fresh locally grown, but you probably already know that.

Determining how many tomatoes you need is no easy task.  I have found that I need approximately 12 to 14 pounds of tomatoes to make about 8 pints of soup.  (or one canner load) Or another way to figure it is you need approximately 2 large tomatoes per pint.
I add more tomatoes to mine, making my soup mostly tomatoes with the veggies added for flavor. Adding too many vegetables makes it tastes more like vegetable juice!

Home Grown and Buying Local

What's in our food?

There are so many reports out now about the dangers of GMO's,  High Fructose Corn Syrup,  Preservatives,  Chemicals and many other things in our food. 
Evidence is growing that many foods with additives are addictive like cocaine according to a growing body of Scientific Research.

I think it is a good idea for everyone to make their own choice about what they are consuming, but the choice should at least be an informed decision. 

After a lot of reading and research, my husband and I have been slowly changing our eating habits over the last few years.  We grow more of our own food in our vegetable and herb gardens and hope to continue to expand.