Tomato Soup with a Twist

This soup is one of the first things I ever made independently when I started helping out by making dinner at home and as with most of my recipes it is so easy!  I like thing to be simple and delicious.

Ingredients: 

Onion finely chopped

2x can chopped tom

2 tbls tomato puree

1 tsp sugar

1tsp cumin powder

2 pints chicken or vegetable stock (I like pareve chicken stock to get the meaty flavour but keep it vegetarian)

mini pasta shapes

salt/pepper

Fresh basil leaves to serve

To Make:

Fry over the onions until they are translucent

Sprinkle over the cumin powder and fry off for another minute or so.  The cumin is quite strong so don't over do it, you only want a hint to come through.

Stir in the chopped toms and tomato puree, then sprinkle over the sugar and mix in.  The sugar helps bring out the intensity of the tomatoes and it really does make a difference!

Add in the stock, salt and pepper to taste and leave to simmer for about half a hour to thicken up.

About 10 minutes before serving you can add the raw pasta to the soup and cook as you would if you had added the pasta to regular boiling water.  However we find that the pasta keeps swelling and drinks up any left over soup, so there is nothing for the next day, so I recommend adding cooked pasta to each bowl as you serve the soup.

I'll never forget how impressed my mum was that I pulled off a delicious dinner (this was just the starter), which really gave me the motivation to try out a whole range of recipes in the kitchen, so thanks mum, because with out your support who know what type of dinners I would be making for Rudi these days. :)