Slow Cooked Tomato and Pepper Soup

To follow on from my earlier post here is a quick and easy recipe that I cooked up yesterday which uses everyday ingredients and 3 of my top 8 herbs and spices.

So here goes, a recipe for Slow Cooked Tomato and Pepper Soup.

I cooked mine in the slow cooker so that I could just leave it while I went off and did other things. Slow cookers are brilliant for those of us who don't have the time to spend hours standing over a hob continuously stirring the contents of big pot. If you don't have a slow cooker, you can cook this easily on the hob instead.

You will need :

1 onion (finely chopped)
1 tbsp of olive oil
75g lardons (you can simply leave this out if you need it to be vegetarian)
75g red peppers (I used seedless baby peppers)
100g fresh tomatoes, preferably small sweet ones. (I used sugar drop tomatoes)
1/2 tsp cracked black pepper
1 heaped teaspoon of dried basil
Handful of fresh basil leaves (optional)
400g chopped tomatoes (I just used tinned ones)
1 large clove of garlic
Parmesan shavings (optional)

I have put optional next to those ingredients that are nice additions but won't ruin the recipe if they are left out. If you don't have lardons you can use bacon rashers sliced up into little squares.

Method:

All you need to do is throw everything (except the fresh basil leaves and parmesan) into the slow cooker. Add about 200ml of cold water put the lid on and set to high. Leave the contents happily bubbling away for about 2 hours. If needs be you can leave it for longer, it won't spoil. That is the beauty of slow cookers. If cooking on a hob, bring to the boil and simmer for about half an hour.

About 10 minutes or so before you are planning to serve the soup, pour the contents of the slow cooker into a food processer and give it a quick wizz. Don't over do the wizzing though you don't want to make a puree. You want it smooth but with some chunks left in for texture. Alternatively, if you have one, use a hand held processer. It will probably be slightly less messy.

Once the soup is a nice soupy consistency pour back into the slow cooker and stir in the fresh basil leaves. If you are not using the fresh leaves you can just serve it up at this point, as it is.

Finish by creating a small pile of parmesan shavings in the centre of the bowl, et voila!

Easy peasy but delicious!

Enjoy.