Roast Tomato & Garlic Soup with a Basil Mascarpone Topping

For my mam and dad's 14th wedding anniversary, I decided that I would make dinner for them as an anniversary treat. I chose this recipe from my mam's book, Apron Strings, & I added some cooked spagettii and used the soup as a pasta sauce. This soup is full of flavour and it turned out really well.

Roast Tomato & Garlic Soup with a Basil Mascarpone Topping

Ingredients

850g fresh tomatoes, quartered

10 garlic cloves, peeled & cut in half

1 red onion, roughly chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 teasp sugar

salt & pepper

600mls chicken/vegetable stock

handful basil leaves

150g mascarpone

To Serve

100g mascarpone

2 tbsp basil pesto
small basil leaves

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
2. Put the chopped tomatoes, garlic cloves and onion in an over proof dish. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle over the sugar and season with a pinch of sea salt and some freshly ground pepper.

3. Wash your hands and massage all the ingredients together until the tomatoes and onion are well combined with all the other ingredients.

4. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes. 

5. Meanwhile in a large saucepan heat the stock, stir in the cooked roasted tomato mix and add the basil. Simmer over a low heat for 10 minutes.
6. Blend the soup until smooth with a liquidiser or hand blender.

7. Return to the heat and stir through the mascarpone.

8. To make the topping, combine the 100g of mascarpone with the basil pesto in a bowl.

9. Serve the soup in a bowl or teacup with a dollop of the basil mascarpone and a few small basil leaves to garnish.