When I hopped over to Healthy Delicious, I realised that it’s meatless Friday today, I have totally forgotten. And as a matter of fact, I am on a detox week, today is Day 5. It’s very hard to resist all temptations. The detox plan I am using is supposed to be a juice and tea week by a Swiss company called Biotta. There is a box you can buy which included all the drinks you need in a box. However, having an empty stomach is impossible for me so instead I am using this box to assist me. This week I have been homemade soups, cream crackers or a small piece of white bread to accompany the Biotta detox plan. I mean ultimately I do want to lose weight but I would rather lose gradually than to have a quick rebound the following week.

Tonight, I am supposed to have a dinner gathering in a nice Italian restaurant. I generally turn down the invitation and stay quietly at home. When you go on a detox diet, it seems it’s hard to keep up with your social life but I don’t want to ruin the previous days I have been through. I asked Peter to go without me, he asked if I can pause a day. I asked if I could just order a salad? No way !!! So I was firm, stay quietly at home and had my fresh tomato soup.

I was wondering if it’s worth to post this but a lot of tomato soup recipes I found are with cream or flour and that’s not what I like. Also a lot of recipes call for chicken stock which is not vegetarian friendly. I am sure there are other readers out there who would like a simple yet tasty tomato soup. This tomato soup is perfect at all time, no matter if you want detox or just a normal meal. Having a tomato soup is always satisfying and appetizing.

Ingredients:

• 1 kilo fresh tomatoes (use organic ones if possible)
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt & pepper
• 500ml vegetable bouillon/ stock
• 1 small piece of rock sugar (chinese sugar) or 2 tbsp of brown sugar
• fresh basil leaves
• (optional) light quark (cheese)* (German known as Magerquark)

*Quark usually has much lower fat content (about the same as yogurt) than cream cheeses and has no salt added. (Source from Wikipedia)

Directions:

1. To peel the tomatoes, boil some water in a big pan, put the tomatoes in and turn of the heat. Leave for 3-4 minutes. You will then see the tomato skins will crack open. Discard the hot water and add in some cold tap water to cool down the tomatoes. When not too hot, remove the tomato skins accordingly. Cut into large pieces and set aside in a large bowl.
2. Heat up a large soup pan, drizzle some olive oil and add in the onion and garlic, cook for 2 mins until the onion becomes almost transparent.
3. Add the tomatoes into the onion mixture. Stir and let it simmer at medium high heat for 10 minutes.
4. Add in the vegetable bouillon andsugar let it simmer for another 20 minutes.
5. Remove from heat, using a handheld blender, whiz the soup until it becomes a creamy texture.
6. Bring it back to boil, season with salt and pepper and it is ready to serve.
7. To serve, add a small teaspoon of the light quark in the soup bowl and sprinkle some fresh basil leaves for the aroma and garnish.

Notes.

• I learnt from the Biotta plan that a little quark can be eaten with boiled potatoes. So it inspired by to add a little in the soup. The quark does not melt completely like mascarpone or cream but it does give a texture like mozzarella but as I said this is optional.

If you are like soup, you may like the following too?

• Best pumpkin soup ever
• Swiss barley Soup
• Asparagus lemongrass cappuccino
• Dutch green pea soup(erwtensoep)