✨The tomato soup✨ of summer
It won't even heat up your kitchen
Good morning!
I’ve probably mentioned it here and there, but for those who are new to my site and newsletter, I’m a lifelong vegetable gardener. In fact, that’s probably the only reason I started cooking: I loved to grow vegetables … but then I had to do something with them. 😂
Late spring weather has been hot and rainy here, and I’m hoping for an early start to the tomato season. My greed for homegrown heirloom tomatoes has me daydreaming about all the ways I’ll be using up my favorite garden crop.
Roasting anything in mid-July was always pretty much a no-go for me, but the air fryer changed all that. It roasts vegetables beautifully and doesn’t heat up the kitchen at all.
I swear I’m not doing a pitch for air fryers. It’s just that of all the appliance gadgets I’ve bought over the years, this is the one that’s slipped seamlessly into my cooking habits.
Now, I made and refined this soup recipe ahead of my own tomato harvest using on-the-vine Campari (or “cocktail”) tomatoes from the grocery store. And still, it’s delicious. I can’t wait for the homegrown thing in a month or two.
Also on tap today is another fried toast with one of my favorite things in the food world: a jammy egg.
In response to all of this surprise heat and humidity here in June, I fired up the air fryer to create a vibrant and velvety tomato soup that's perfect for summer. It takes all the best flavors of the season — juicy tomatoes, sweet peppers, and fragrant basil — and transforms them into a bowl of pure comfort food (don’t forget the grilled cheese!). It's surprisingly simple and incredibly delicious. If summer were a soup, this would be it!
Nicoise Fried Toast with Jammy Eggs
One of my favorite uses for leftover salads is as a sandwich filling. I usually make big batches of salads to use for a few days, and it keeps things from getting boring. Here, I used the Nicoise salad for inspiration and whipped up a quick, herby olive and tomato mix, along with some salmon, and topped everything with some soft-yolked eggs. Oh, those 7-minute eggs! (Not to be confused with 7-minute abs — name that movie from the ‘90s!)
Fellow cooks, I’m curious. When you’re searching for recipes, how much of the recipe do you want to be from scratch? I’m thinking of components like pestos, salsas, salad dressings, beans, tortillas, raw meat, seafood.
Of course, if the recipe is for pesto, then it would be from scratch, but what about a sauce that includes pesto as an ingredient? Or, say, chicken salad: do you want to cook the chicken from raw or are you okay with using a rotisserie chicken?
This applies to soup, too. Do you use canned or boxed broth or make it from scratch every time? Are you okay with adding canned tomato sauce, or do you want to break down whole tomatoes?
I’m kind of a mish-mash cook myself — e.g., I’m perfectly happy opening a can of black beans but would rather make guacamole from scratch. And I make so much soup I can’t possibly make it all from scratch.
But I want to be as helpful as possible. If folx prefer — or want to learn — to make components from scratch, such as cooking dried beans for soups, I’m more than happy to start making some how-tos.
Just wanted to get y’all’s thoughts on the subject! If you wouldn’t mind taking this super-quick, one-click poll below, I’d appreciate it. And if you have additional thoughts, please leave a comment on this newsletter (or even on the tomato soup post on the blog).
Until next time, friends, stay kind 🫶🏻, wear sunscreen 🧴, and remember that soup is nature’s perfect food 🍲
Love this roasted tomato soup recipe! This will be my new go to. Thanks!
I, too, am a jammy egg lover! Put them on anything....even soup!
Your poll is great! I try to do homemade as much as possible, but sometimes canned beans and tomatoes are a blessing! Stay cool and be well. Hope your garden flourishes!