Immune Boosting Tomato Soup

During the autumn and winter months, my saute and soup maker comes into its own. I can make a homemade soup in as little as 21 minutes from anything I can find in the fridge.

One of my favourite soups to make is a tomato soup that is laced with lots of garlic, ginger and honey that particularly hits the spot when I'm not feeling well. I use A LOT of garlic - 6 large cloves - but you can adjust to your own taste. I know I'm a bit of a garlic fiend!

As it's cold and flu season, I thought I'd share my recipe here. I have written it for a saute and soup maker (mine is this Morphy Richards 1.6l model), but I know it's easily adjusted for the stove top - just follow steps 1-3 and then simmer until everything is cooked and the rice is nice and soft before blitzing with a hand blender or in a food processor.

Recipe - Serves 4

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• 1 large onion, roughly chopped

• Thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled and chopped*

• 6 cloves of garlic, chopped

• 500g mixed tomatoes, roughly chopped

• 400g canned chopped tomatoes

• Vegetable stock cube

• 1 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp black pepper

• 1 tsp raw honey

• 3 tbsp white rice (I use basmati)

*If you don't have fresh ginger, 1 teaspoon ground ginger or a good heaped teaspoon of ginger paste make a good substitution.

Method

1. Heat the oil in the saute and soup maker and add the onions. Fry until the onions are starting to soften.

2. Add the ginger and the garlic and continue to fry for another minute, until it becomes aromatic.

3. Add the tomatoes and fry for a further minute.

4. Switch the saute function off and add all other remaining ingredients plus enough water to reach the maximum line in the soup maker (tip: use the chopped tomatoes can and rinse out the can at the same time!).

5. Use the blend setting on the soup maker - you're then just 21 mins away from a steaming bowl of soup!

I like to serve this really simply with some of my favoruite bread and butter (pictured is some home made tiger rolls that were part of a Baked In breadmaking club box).

This soup also goes really well with some Cheesy Tear & Share Bread which turns it into a more substantial meal as well.

This recipe freezes really well.