Homemade Tomato Soup

We had a fairly cool summer and our tomatoes didn't start ripening until a few weeks ago. Well, three days ago the temp dipped to freezing. We heard the forecast, so picked the rest of the big ripe tomatoes, which I froze, and these little cherry and pear tomatoes.

I've been looking forward to soup weather!

I washed the tomatoes and removed the stems.

And into a pot they went along with celery, onion, garlic, carrots, bay leaves, jalapenos, bacon, bell peppers, salt, pepper, cumin, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and white wine.

It doesn't take long for the tomatoes to start to break down... this is a shot after about 10 minutes on the stove. At this point I put a lid on the pot and let it simmer for about 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, the soup looked like this and was ready to strain.
I put everything through a food mill...
... there were too many seeds left in the soup, so I strained it again through a sieve.
I took two of the little biscuits that come in a roll and diced them up for croutons.
A few tablespoons of butter...
... add the bread cubes and stir until browned and crispy.

Here's the finished soup... it was very aromatic, just the right consistency and so flavorful! We ate this soup with a grilled cheese sandwich using the whole wheat bread I made the other day. No real recipe is needed for this. Just put ingredients that you like in with tomatoes, strain, simmer and enjoy!

You could add sausage to this soup if you want more substance, but it was very filling along with the sandwich.