Sunday Kitchen -Tomato Mint soup & Wreath Bread

Sunday kitchen – Fresh Tomato and Mint Soup with Cataluña Wreath Bread

Tomato and mint soup is something I have been cooking the last few summers; it’s simple, quick and healthy.

With an abundance of mint growing in the garden every year, I try and use it in everything. Funnily enough it is delicious with tomatoes.

The Cataluña Wreath bread is made with rosemary, raisins and pine nuts. This specific recipe is from one of many books picked up from my travels in Spain.

The Catalan Country Kitchen by Marimar Torres.  

The author of this book recommends this bread with poultry and meat dishes served with fruit. I love it with this soup, the rosemary and raisins blend perfectly with the sweet vine tomatoes also as the author suggest makes a wonderful centre piece.

The soup is wonderfully easy to make with preparation time being around 5 minutes and cooking time 15 minutes. This leaves you plenty of time to prepare the bread.

Fresh Tomato and Mint Soup

Ingredients:

3 vine tomatoes (roughly chopped)

2 red onions

2 garlic cloves

3 celery leaves (including leaves)

2 spring onions

1 red pepper/capsicum

2 tins of chopped tomatoes

500ml water

500ml vegetable/chicken stock

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon whole black peppercorn/cracked

1 teaspoon of brown sugar

Approx 10 mint leaves

1 tablespoon of olive oil

Method:

Roughly chop all vegetables. Heat oil in a saucepan and add red onions and cook for a few minutes. Then add crushed garlic, spring onions, red peppers/capsicum, celery, peppercorns and paprika- heat through for a few minutes.

Add stock, water, sugar and tin tomatoes then bring to boil for 10minutes.

Pour soup into blender (or use hand blender), and blend well add mint and fresh vine tomatoes, blend and serve. Simple as that!

*I have basil mint growing in the garden, so I added a few of those leaves too, as we know basil and tomatoes go well and so does mint!

Wreath Bread with Rosemary, Raisins and Pine Nuts

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons of dry active yeast

1 teaspoon hone

1 cup of warm water

1 cup milk

2 tablespoon coarsely chopped fresh rosemary leaves

½ cup dark raisins

¼ cup pine nuts, lightly toasted

5 and ½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour

2 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil

1 and ½ teaspoon salt

Method:

In a food processor bowl, dissolve yeast and honey in warm water; don’t stir, just let it sit for 5-10 minutes to activate yeast. Meanwhile, heat milk in a saucepan until warm and set aside.

In a small bowl toss chopped rosemary, raisins, and pine nuts with ½ cup of flour and set aside. As soon yeast is activated (this is when the yeast starts popping to the top), mix in warm milk, olive oil, salt, and 1 cup of flour; whirl for a 1minute. Add remaining 4 cups of flour and process until dough starts to pull away from the sides.

Turn dough onto floured surface and knead in rosemary, raisins, pine nuts and the flour. Continue to knead until these are evenly distributed and the surface of the dough is shiny and elastic.

Oil a bowl and place dough into it, turning and coating all sides with the oil. Cover with a cloth and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Oil a pizza pan. Punch dough down to release the air. Lift it and, holding it in both hands, punch your thumbs through the middle of the dough and pull it apart to make a large doughnut shaped bread about 12 inches in diameter. Be sure the hole is quite large as it will shrink as the bread bakes.

Place on oiled pizza pan and slash it around the edge with a sharp knife so it resembles a braided wreath. Brush with olive oil and let it rest for 5 minutes.

Place in a cold oven, turn to 400 F, Gas mark 6, 200 C and bake for 35 minutes or until crust is browned and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. 

*If you wish to see one of your favorite recipes featured in our Sunday Kitchen email us at forageuk@gmail.com - would love to hear from you :)