Creamy Tomato Soup

Fall is the right time to enjoy hearty soups! let us welcome 2011 fall/ winter with some comforting soups. Let us begin with our humble tomato soup! The most comforting soup ever discovered on planet earth would be with tomato.

I said creamy, right? But this soup has no cream or  corn starch to make it all silky. Yes, I am adding some sweet potatoes to get the velvety texture. Of course you can also replace it with cream or even potato.
Throw in some boiled pasta alphabets and your munchkins would guzzle them up!
 My wonderful baby sitter brought some home grown red bell peppers which added more color to my soup.

I used my handy dandy pressure cooker, but this can be made in any pan/ dutch oven.

Get Ready:

• 3 large tomatoes cut into big chunks
• 1 medium white onion chopped
• 1/3 cup cubed sweet potato
• 1/3 cup  chopped red bell pepper
• 3 garlic cloves smashed
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 4-6 black pepper corns
• 1 cup water
• salt to taste
• black pepper powder to taste
• 1/2 tsp butter
• 1/2 tsp olive oil

Go:

• In a pan, add the oil/ butter.
• once hot add the bay leaf, onion and garlic. cook till the onions are translucent and garlic is aromatic.
• add the bell peppers, tomato,sweet potato, pepper corns, oregano, salt to taste and saute for 2-3 mins.
• Add 1 cup of water and pressure cook every thing for 2 whistles.
• Let he cooker cool and open the lid.
• Strain the water and keep it. do not discard the water.
• Puree the tomato, sweet potato onion  that is strained out.
• take the puree back to pan on a medium heat. adjust spices, add black pepper powder if needed.
• if the soup is too thick add the strained water to desired consistency.
• let the soup come to a boil.
• turn heat off and enjoy!