Tomato soup and Irish soda bread

Today I made tomato soup and Irish soda bread for lunch.  I made the bread first so it could be baking while I made the soup, because the soup does not take long at all.  I found a recipe for the bread online.  I didn’t have any buttermilk to use, so I used some sour cream which was getting a bit old but was still good. 

I mixed up the bread and made it into a loaf.  Soda bread is a “quick bread” which means it doesn’t use yeast and does not need to be left to rise before baking.  It rises - quickly - in the oven. 

This took a while to bake so next time I will make it a bit flatter and make the cuts deeper. 

After the bread was in the oven I started the soup.  I peeled and chopped two onions and sautéed them in maybe a fourth of a cup of olive oil. 

Then I added some vegetable stock - you can use broth you already have or bouillon cubes.  I like these little stock things from Knorr.  They are a bit high in price but I try to wait until they are on sale and then I buy several packets.  I use a supermarket’s own brand for the chopped tomatoes. 

I let those things all cook together (onions, stock “cubes” although they aren’t really cubes,  two cans of chopped tomatoes, and some water - about half a can of water) and added salt and seasoning.  I didn’t have plain basil so I used some Italian seasoning.   I tasted it and found it was a bit acidic so I added some baking soda.  Some people add sugar to take away an acid taste but I prefer using baking soda if I can.  I added a little first and then decided to add a good bit more - perhaps I added half a teaspoon in all.   If you add baking soda (I should say here for my British readers that baking soda is simply bicarbonate of soda) to something acidic you will notice that it fizzes a bit as it mixes in. 

Here I add a little bit:

And after I add a bit more and mix it in:

You can see the bubbles as the soda fizzes a bit.  You don’t want a lot, just enough to tame a bit of the acidity of the tomatoes. 

I added a bit more water as I felt the soup was too thick.  Maybe another half a can’s worth, maybe a bit more.  It’s all a matter of preference. 

After it’s cooked for a while you can eat the soup as it is, rather chunky, or you can blend it down to make it smoother.  You can make it very smooth, or go midway which is what I aimed for.   You can put the soup, a cup or so at a time, in a blender or food processor, or use a stick blender which is what I prefer.   Mine is quite a cheap stick blender but I am happy with it. 

A stick blender makes soups so easy to do and really helps with making cheap and easy but nutritious meals. 

The bread eventually got done in the middle and ready to eat:

Lunch was delicious if I do say so myself!

It was cheap, used things I almost always have on hand, and wasn’t difficult to make. 

Here is the recipe I followed (for the most part) for the soda bread:

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/16947/amazingly-easy-irish-soda-bread/

The soup keeps well but you can add it to other dishes.  I plan to add our leftover soup to chili tonight along with some beans that need to be used up and some taco meat that I’m defrosting now. 

Happy cooking!