Orange Tomato Soup with Cashew Dill Cream

Hola! One of the wonderful things about cooking, or uncorking as the case may be, is the the ability to depart intuitively from a recipe. I find it a delight when I try something a little different, or very different, and end up with a positive outcome. Whether its discovering I've improved on a tried and true favorite, or tweaked a first attempt, it's gratifying to taste the influence of my own personal touch, however minute. This is a much harder achievement in baking, which is very much about chemistry, and requires an entirely different intuition. I say this because when I have improvised with baking, the result is usually less than satisfactory. Or maybe it's just me. I'm not beyond that consideration.

Last night I whipped up a delicious Orange Tomato Soup from my Vitamix cookbook. It requires a little advance cooking, and a word to the wise, the big V has an automatic shutoff to keep its motor from overheating, so if the ingredients you put in it are too hot to begin with, it may engage in some civil disobedience after a short while. This happened to me the last time I began with hot ingredients, so make sure you let the soup cool somewhat before you purée it.

Here are the suspects:
1 1/2 lbs Roma tomatoes (which taste like styrofoam this time of year, especially ifit was picked green and gassed. Whole Foods is probably your only hope for a good tomato in March. I used red tomatoes on the vine, and it worked out great.)
1 medium carrot, diced
1/2 small onion, diced (most of you have gathered at this point that onions and I are not always friends. I had a leek leftover from something else, which has a lighter, yet still oniony flavor, so I subbed it in. I think the subtlety proved it was a wise choice.
1/2 medium orange, peeled, with a 1"x1/2" chunk of peel reserved for the soup. (POTENT! I used more like a one inch cube of peel, and it added a bitterness that was just ever so slightly over pronounced. Next time I will be much more sparing.)
2 cups of vegetable broth (I like Rapunzel cubes dissolved in water.)
1 tbsp sugar or to taste (I halved it.)
1 tbsp fresh chopped basil or flat parsley (basil, duh)
Crème Fraiche or sour cream to garnish
Parsley or basil to garnish
Salt and Pepper to taste (maybe a pinch of each, otherwise leave it to your guests to spice it up if they choose.)

Ménage all your ingredients, except the garnish, in a stock pot. Bring to a boil, Simmer 30 minutes or until your vegetables give up. I attempted purée them with my hand blender in the pot, but it was not quite up to the task. Let the soup collect itself for a few minutes, and after its taken a few deep breaths, pour into the Vitamix and scramble the living daylights out of it. When the soup is sufficiently disoriented, pour into soup mugs or bowls, garnish and serve. The ingredients will have gained back some of the heat they lost whilst they blend, so the soup should come out of the blender nice and steamy.

Here's the twist, I skipped the Crème Fraiche and opted for a raw Cashew Dill Cream, also courtesy of the Vitamix cookbook.

Here's the biz:
1/2 cup raw cashews
1/2 cup raw pine nuts
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice, or to taste ( i used about three lemons worth actually.)
2 tbsp agave nectar
1 1/2 tbsp minced fresh dill weed
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tsb salt

*note: those are all the listed ingredients, which will yield a yummy but incredibly dense mixture in the blender. More like cashew butter than a sauce. I added an additional cup of water to the mix, and still came out with what I describe as a cream. The beautiful picture in the cookbook shows a lovely sauce, probably the consistency of a creamy salad dressing, artfully drizzled over some fresh veggies. My result didn't drizzle so much as dollop or spread. Some thing tells me there's something missing from the ingredients. Anyway, the short and long of it is you can easily vary the consistency with water, depending on what your end goal is.

I this case, I thought it would make a lovely substitute for Crème Fraiche, so I dollopsed and garnished. Voila!

The soup, as I said, was a little bitter from the rind, but the leeks were right on target. I gave them a light sauté before adding all the other ingredients. The cashew dill cream was out of this world! You could spread it on toast or crackers, serve it as a dip,garnish a dish with it, or thin it down a nit and serve it over salad or pasta. It has a rich savory flavor that will leave you wanting more. I could eat this stuff out of the glass jar in my refrigerator and be very content.





I'm delighted to see some comments and suggestions on the blog! Even if they are majoratively from my sister. I am not proud. Heading to G Zen tonight with a friend, and I promise to take a picture of my meal before it is half devoured.

Ciao!
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Location:Madison, CT