Easy peasy tomato soup...

Tomato soup is my favourite thing to eat.  I love it with a handful of grated cheese on top! It is so easy to make which is a bonus. Here are my ingredients:

Balsamic vinegar, olive oil, passata, tomatoes, chillis, garlic, stock cube, onions

I take a load of tomatoes, roughly chop and throw into a baking tray with a roughly chopped onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, a chilli or two (optional), and a slosh of olive oil and balsamic vinegar:

Stick in a medium oven (160-170 degrees) for half an hour. When you take them out they should be softish:

Put the cooked tomato-y mix in a saucepan, add the passata and some water (I used around a pint, best to not add too much and add extra if it is too thick once blitzed) and a stock cube and simmer for 10 minutes or so just to make sure everything is soft, then blitz in a blender.

If you wanted it to be posh you could put it through a sieve to make it extra smooth, then swirl cream or olive oil on top. This is how I ate mine:

 

A few variations: add herbs (basil would be great - add at the end and stir through), add red pepper to the baking tray or try frying a piece of smoked bacon and add to the pan then blitz in for a rich smokey taste. You could also fling in any limp looking veg from the bottom of the fridge to use them up! If you don't have passata you can either use a tin of tomatoes or just leave it out (I just added it to bulk up the soup really!). If you leave the passata out you might want to add a squeeze of tomato puree.