Last year I spent some time trying to make tomato soup. I didn’t ever succeed in making something that really worked for me.

Last night I made my usual Pumpkin soup… but I tried a couple of different things. I wanted to add some beans so we could have it as a main course—just pumpkin is a little insufficient. I also wanted to try tomato passata rather than a tin of tomatoes—I want some of the bottles:-) and for future reference when cooking for those who can’t eat tinned stuff.

I think I’ve often done a larger batch (2 butternuts) and tins of tomato are about half the quantity of the bottles of passata. So this soup that I made turned into Tomato soup! Even better, it’s almost exactly what I was trying to get last year (think tinned tomato soup, one of my real comfort foods, sad I know).

I’ll do it a little differently if I’m making tomato soup, but here’s what I did.

Pumpkin/Tomato Soup
1 butternut (normally 2, for tomato soup I’ll do half), chopped, peeled and seeded
1 onion
enough chicken stock to cover the vegies
3 or 4 shakes cayenne pepper (probably 2 or 3 would work better)
2 tins butter beans (I think this is just under 4 cups… I’ll have to check what that would be dried)
1 bottle passata (normally one tin of tomatoes)
1 small tin evaporated milk (not sure if I’ll leave this in for tomato)

Put the butternut, onion, chicken stock, beans and cayenne in a pot, and boil. Usually it’s in the order of 20 minutes or so—depending how the pumpkin is chopped. I guess if I start with dried beans I’d soak them and cook them and add the pumpkin for the last 20 minutes.
Blend this well. Pour in the passata and rinse out the bottle with a little water (if I’m using tinned tomatoes, I add them before blending). Stir well and heat. Add the evaporated milk and stir.

Be aware that the cayenne flavour develops over time. We had this again for lunch today, and it was definitely warmer than last night!

I served it with homemade bread.

ETA the photo.