Summer Tomato and Corn Soup

I bought lots of tomatoes to make another batch of my beloved smothered okra. Instead, Alex told me he would try some fried okra. So, I fried the okra, along with some green tomatoes. It’s easy enough once you go through the work of heating up a whole skillet of canola.

Fried okra; fried green tomatoes with creamy tofu-celeriac sauce from Vegan Soul Kitchen

But what to do with all my tomatoes? Tomato soup! Soup in the summer? Even if you don’t want a hot soup in the summer, there’s no doubt that’s when you get the best tomatoes. So, I made tomato soup. And I enjoyed it.

I compared recipes from both Veganomicon and Vegan Soul Kitchen, did a bit of combining, and ended up mostly following Terry Bryant’s recipe from Vegan Soul Kitchen for Charred Plum Tomato and Sweet Corn Soup with a Kick, without the crispy okra strips he includes (I’d used up my okra!). It was time consuming, but not difficult, and it was well worth the time. This made a large batch of soup that’s good cold, straight from the fridge, or even better warmed slightly to just below room temperature.

Before and after photos of my corn to corn broth and tomato halves to oven-roasted tomatoes.

This soup starts with a corn stock, made from corn cobs in water. I boiled this down while the tomatoes roasted in the oven. In my photos, you’ll see that I did not take off the tops of the tomatoes before they roasted because I figured I would remove them after they cooked. This was a mistake I hope to only make once. It was messy work getting those tops off!

The whole recipe is so simple: corn stock, roasted tomatoes with their juices, roasted garlic, onion, and the corn reserved from the cobs. It’s so fresh and delicious. The kick is from red pepper flakes and it was just spicy enough and the even the roasted tomatoes taste fresh and summery. I enjoyed mine with some cilantro.