Tomato and bread cold soup

Summer in Greece and August is here so have a great month everyone!

147 days till Christmas and if that seems far away just think that in just 4 weeks we will be in Autumn! Sure time flies but a bit too fast I think lately!

So far though people are going away on vacation and who ever stays in the city because of work or lack of money or time or both we are all spending those hot summer days in the garden or in the terrace or our little balcony.

What we are waiting for is for the wonderful time to go downtown Athens and take a picture crossing a once busy street and tell the world how great it is to be in a ghost town in the middle of summer.

And because we are cooking for us, for our friends and our clients I will talk to you about a new soup I made to give to our guests, one soup that really has the essence of summer inside. It all started for medical reasons, as I have to remove the skin and seeds from the tomatoes.

So I would strain this liquid and mop it up with some good and fresh bread. And the question came to my mind about preserving this wonderful taste and in a form that could feed many people.

And then I thought about a wonderful Italian winter soup called Ribolita that it is made with beans, cabbage and bread... and because they reboil it with the bread inside they call it ribolita.. So I wondered if they make such a soup with tomatoes and bread and I found out that they do in the south of France and found an old recipe.

I tweaked it a bit and here it is! Will be sharing it with you today! It is a bit time consuming but trust me and give it a try! Also it is great as you could keep it in the freezer in it's earlier stage and soon you could have a great meal to feed to your guests...

We accompany the soup with some basil pesto and some fresh goat cheese..

Diffuculty: 2 of 3

Duration:1 hour cooking

Serves:6-8 people

Ingredients

6 big tomatoes (1,5 kilos)

3 tbsp. red wine vinegar

400 g of good quality stale bread cut in cubes

4 tbsp olive oil

2 big white onions cut in thin slices

2 cloves of garlic

2 springs of basil and some basil leaves for serving

1 vegetable cube

salt and pepper

4-5 baby tomatoes for serving

basil pesto for serving

goat cheese for serving

Method

Score a cross at the bottom side of the tomatoes.

We put a pot with water to boil on high heat.

Fill up a bowl with cold water and a few ice cubes and leave aside. Also we put a strainer on a bowl and have it ready.

We add the tomatoes in the boiling water and let them in for one minute. We will see signs that the skin peels off around the scores we made.

Take them out with a slotted spoon and place them in the cold water bowl for them to cool down.

With the help of a knife we remove the skin from the tomatoes and we slice them in half. Remove the juice and seeds in a bowl and keep the tomatoes in another bowl after we cut them in cubes.

Strain the juice and seeds using the strainer. Keep the juice and discard the seeds.

To the juice we add the vinegar and after mixing we empty the mixture on our bread cubes for them to soak it up.

In a dutch oven or a pot that we can put in the oven we sweat the onions in the olive oil over medium heat. We do not want the onions to take colour.

After 10 minutes we add the springs of basil, stock cube and garlic and we sauté all these for another minute.

Preheat the oven at 150 Celsius.

Add the tomatoes and any juice left to the pot. Also the bread and we cook it all for another 5 minutes.

Place the lid on and bake in the oven of 40-45 minutes till tomatoes are tender. Add salt and pepper and taste and add more if needed.

You can now divide in portions and freeze.

If you want to serve the soup on the same day then you use the stick blender to cream the soup after removing the basil.

If needed add some water or tomato juice. Put the soup in the fridge it for a few hours for it to be extra cold for serving!

Serve with pesto, basil leaves, cheese and baby tomatoes...