Hot Tomato Milkshakes

Yes, that's right. Don't navigate away from my page though, there's more to this story, I promise.

When MiddleC was just a little girl, she had some motor-skill issues. She had a lot of difficulty with dexterity and movement. Some things, like holding a pencil, turning on taps, and manipulating a spoon carefully, were very hard for her.

After a lot of physical and occupational therapy, she is now a lovely and accomplished young lady who can even use chopsticks. Very important in our household, where we eat so much Asian food and I have quite an extensive chopstick selection - polished wood, personalised engraved, pure jade(admittedly a bit slippery) coloured plastics, and others....

But I digress, this post is not about chopsticks. Nor about food you would care to eat with them. The chopsticks were merely an indication of MiddleC's amazing culinary progress. Today's post is about Hot Tomato Milkshakes.

This is the name we gave to Tomato Soup. As the steady spooning required for slurping soup was difficult, and I objected to kittystyle lapping, an almost phobia was beginning. The mere mention of the 'S' word would bring on tears. Being the sensitive, wonderful mother that I am, I came up with the concept of Hot Tomato(or other)Milkshakes. These fantastic culinary creations are soup cunningly disguised in a cup, served through a straw. Problem solved. Except for chunks - thankfully you can actually get large bore straws if you look hard enough, perhaps this soup issue is more common than I thought?
Todays recipe is my tribute to tomato soup. We have a huge glut of tomatoes as hundreds of plants self seeded in the vege garden- and compost heap, and herb pots, and on the lawn... determined little suckers. It's fresh and easy with loads of flavour. I even made this soup for one of my exam pieces for my apprenticeship, and it was gobbled up, no straw bribery required.

Ingredients:

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes

I like cherry ones as they are nice and sweet, or use whatever you have on hand. Use a lot because they squish down

1 red capsicum, whole

A few shallots, or a red onion roughly chopped

A few whole garlic cloves

A long red chilli, or more if you like a zing

Veggie stock, or water

Good splash of red wine vinegar

Method:

Heat the oven to about 200*

Bung everything on a tray, drizzle with olive oil and stick in the oven.

Wait until the tomatoes are squishy, the chilli and capsicum are charred looking, and the onion and garlic are softened and cooked. This intensifies the yummy flavours.

If you are lucky enough to have a mouli, pass everything through and put in a pot on the stove.

If you aren't lucky enough to have a mouli, peel and seed the capsicum, peel the onion and garlic, and blend the lot.

A mouli is a great tool that passes everything through a sort of sieve, that allows the good stuff through, but would catch the skin and most of the seeds of the tomatoes as a dry mass. The skin and seeds can sometimes have a bit of bitterness, so add some castor sugar to taste and neutralise the acidity.

Dilute to taste with some veggie stock or water. Heat and then add that good splash of red wine vinegar. You don't want to overpower, just add a bit of intrigue. Balsamic vinegar will be too strong. Taste and adjust with salt or sugar to taste. Use castor sugar for a good 'clean' taste.

Serve and garnish with basil leaves and a drizzle of olive oil- I'm lucky enough to have basil oil, yumm... If you are a complete basil fiend, or for a change, you can add fresh basil at the blending stage. Just don't boil the soup or you will lose a lot of it's fresh green taste.

This is a nice first course soup, or lunch dish, it's also yummy chilled. It's not a stick to your ribs winter dish, just perfect for the warm time of the year when you have so many tomatoes you don't know what to do, or can get a case of cheapie ripe tomatoes for a couple of bucks at the markets and it would be a crime not to give them a home.

So dear Readers, what culinary phobias have you overcome or battled with?