Golden Beet and Yellow Tomato Soup

Golden Beet and Yellow Tomato Soup

Golden Beet and Yellow Tomato Soup - The Messy Baker

There’s a great moment in the pilot episode of Firefly. Against a backdrop of falling bombs, exploding grenades and rounds of gun fire, Bendis, a very young and very terrified solider fears he’s going to die. His superior, played by the ever-so dishy Nathan Fillion, responds with bravado. “We can’t die, Bendis,” he says. “You know why? Because we are so very pretty. We’re just too pretty for God to let us die.”

If only life were like television.

 

Spilled Soup - A glimpse at how The Messy Baker got her name

Serves me right for getting all fancy pants with soup. Turns out nothing, not even my Golden Beet and Yellow Tomato Soup is too pretty to be spared. Either that, or I should watch where I’m stepping during a back porch photo shoot.

Anyway, the other day the garden patch advanced. How do you respond when an armload of golden beets, more yellow tomatoes than one can eat without incurring cankers and a purple carrot force their way into your kitchen, stare you straight in the eye and double dog dare you to do something about it?

Ingredients for Golden Beet and Yellow Tomato Soup - The Messy Baker

You make soup.

Arming myself with some homegrown garlic, a bit of fresh thyme and a flash of desperation inspiration, I chopped, roasted and puréed the intruders into submission. The results? A potload of soup.

Until I spilled it.

Upon reflection not only should I have tread more carefully, I should have minced the beet greens and added them to the mix at the last minute for a flash of colour. Maybe next time. I have a feeling my garden isn’t through with my yet.

 

Print

Golden Beet and Yellow Tomato Soup

This subtle, velvety smooth soup is a delicious way to use up golden beets and yellow tomatoes.

  • Author: Charmian Christie
  • Prep Time: 10 mins
  • Cook Time: 60 mins
  • Total Time: 1 hour 10 mins
  • Yield: 6 to 8 1x
  • Category: Soup
  • Cuisine: Vegetarian

Ingredients

Scale
  • 8 medium yellow tomatoes
  • 6 medium golden beets, peeled
  • 1 large purple carrot (an orange or yellow carrot will do)
  • 2 large onions, quartered
  • 4 cloves garlic, peeled
  • olive or canola oil for drizzling
  • fine sea salt (to taste)
  • 6 cups chicken stock (or vegetable broth)
  • 1 handful fresh thyme
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • fresh ground black pepper

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment or lightly grease with oil.
  2. While the oven is heating, cut the yellow tomatoes in half and place them cut side up on one of the prepared baking sheets. Cut the beets and carrot into 1 1/2-inch pieces and place them with the onions and garlic on the second baking sheet. Drizzle the vegetables with olive or canola oil and sprinkle them lightly with salt. Roast for 30 to 45 minutes on until tender. If the tomatoes are done before the beets and carrots, remove them from the oven while the other vegetables finish cooking.
  3. In the meantime, bring the chicken stock or vegetable broth to a simmer in a large sauce pan with the thyme sprigs. When the vegetables are done, add them to the hot stock and bring the liquid to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes.
  4. Working in small batches, purée the soup in a blender. To get the soup really smooth, use a standard blender not an immersion blender or food processor. Strain the puréed soup through a fine sieve into a clean bowl. Discard any of the seeds and pulp strained out.
  5. Return the soup to the sauce pan, add the cream and gently warm. Season with salt if needed.
  6. Serve warm with a grinding of fresh black pepper.

Notes

This soup freezes nicely.

Did you make this recipe?

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9 Comments
  • Robin Smart
    Posted at 12:03h, 14 September

    Did you let the cats lap it up? I might have been tempted to slurp it up myself. Sounded so good!!
    Love,
    Robin

  • Charmian Christie
    Posted at 13:41h, 14 September

    It was quite nice. Before the tumble. Very smooth and comforting. After the spill? It was just another senseless loss of something that had been edible until Gravity intervened.

    The cats were not called in to help. Just the garden hose. Despite his golden-retriever tendency to follow me around and trip me every chance he gets, Gladly does not have a dog’s appetite. He is partial to yogurt-based dishes only. He nosed his way into my Strawberry Frozen Yogurt, but showed no interest in the soup. Ballantine shuns almost all forms of human food — except for pumpkin, tuna water and the occasional nibble of Andrew’s chili. Don’t ask. We can’t figure it out either. Clean up was my department. Seems only fair. Wish the same applied to the copious amounts of cat hair wafting about the house, but given the feline’s fear of the vacuum cleaner, that’s not going to change any time soon. That and their lack of opposable thumbs.

  • Annie
    Posted at 13:53h, 31 January

    I love that you quoted that scene from Firefly! … and the soup sounds fabu in spite of the mishap. Glad I found your site.

    PS My emergency of the moment is: need a 9×9 pan for some bar cookies, only have a 9×13 pan. All the advice I’ve seen so far on the web is about changing the recipe, but I have a dim memory of some cookbook advice about creating a smaller pan with an aluminum foil barrier and dried beans. If you happen to be reading this in real time, what do you think? (if not, I’m curious about what you think, but I’ll probably damn the torpedoes and give it a shot) All the best,
    — Annie

  • Charmian Christie
    Posted at 14:11h, 31 January

    I’m glad you found my site, too. Any Firefly fan is a friend!

    Oh, the curse of the adjusting pan sizes! I actually wrote a post on that. http://christiescorner.com/2012/01/16/how-to-adjust-pan-size-in-baking/ But it uses math, not an aluminum foil barrier. I have heard of this trick, but never tried it, so can’t tell you if it really works.

    I did the math on your pan situation and you have 2 options. 1: Use the 9X13 and realize that you will have about only 70% of the batter required. Reduce the cooking time since the batter will be thinner. 2: Make 1 1/2 batches of your dish and then the 9X13 pan will allow for the proper thickness of batter. You might need to extend the cooking time slightly.

    If my answer is late and you have given the aluminum foil and beans solution a try, I’d LOVE to know how it works.

    Thanks for asking such a great question! If anyone else knows the answer, please leave a comment.

  • Annie
    Posted at 14:43h, 31 January

    It’s in the oven, sans beans. I’m making a cookie bar that starts with a baked shortbread crust, gets cooled in the pan, then gets filled with a stiffish filling. So I figured I didn’t need the beans, which I’m guessing prevent the filling from spreading across the unused part of the pan. If I’m wrong, and the beans prevent the pan from heating unevenly, I may have an unevenly baked shortbread, but I can live with that.

    In my searches for an answer to this question, I found a neat little product, a 2 inch high strip of silicon that you can shape any way you want to create the rim of a virtual baking pan. The ad showed a cake baked in the shape of a heart on top of a rimless cookie sheet. In this case, it would probably form a good sturdy barrier across one end of my too-long pan. I’ll let you know later what happens today!

  • Charmian Christie
    Posted at 16:00h, 31 January

    The silicon strip sounds intriguing. I’ll have to look into this. I hate having a ton of pans that are rarely used. This sounds like an amazingly versatile fix for many situations.

    Thanks for the update on what you’re doing. I’m now very curious! The item you’re baking makes a huge difference to the outcome, of course. Shortbread crust will cooperate much more than cake batter. The filling? If it’s “stiffish” (great word!) then you should be okay.

    Looking forward to hearing about the final results.

  • Nelson
    Posted at 03:52h, 27 March

    This recipe is indeed very nutritious.

  • Lucia
    Posted at 11:42h, 18 October

    Looks like a great recipe!

    I have tons and tons of small yellow plum tomatoes. Do you think I could substitute an equivalent amount for the yellow tomatoes you used?

  • Charmian Christie
    Posted at 15:57h, 19 October

    Absolutely! That’s a fabulous way to use up your crop. Hope your soup turns out well. I bet it will taste fabulous.