Roasted Tomato and Sherry Soup

I really like the food network -- and I'll admit it -- I like Rachel Ray. During that brief time period between when I get home and when I start working, she is what's on, so I have to appreciate her. I don't mind that she's perky, though I don't buy that her recipes are really doable in thirty minutes (but I have to admit, in the few times I've made them I've wished that I could beat the clock.) I actually haven't tried too many of her recipes yet, but I picked up the August/September issue of her magazine and enjoyed reading it (much more so than this month's issue, which didn't seem nearly as interesting.)

To celebrate the end of summer I decided to make her Roasted Tomato and Sherry Soup. Now, this is a non-thirty-minute meal (who knew she made those?) as roasting the tomatoes alone took 1-hour. Yet, 1 hour after putting some regular, split tomatoes in the oven according to her instructions I got these beauties:

My God-- I did hardly anything to them and they were so attractive and smelled amazing. Rachel says you could just sprinkle them with coarse salt and eat them as an antipasto, and I have to say I was tempted. But, I pressed on:

Here is the final product, served with a Curried Chicken Salad wrap that I will try to blog about in the near future. I found 3/4 cup of sherry to be way too much for this. The soup tasted like sherry, which is okay, but not when it's made with beautiful, roasted tomatoes like these babies. So I kept cooking it until most of the sherry taste was cooked out. Then, it really became something special. Very deep, fresh tomato flavors. Mine was probably a bit thicker due to all the extra cooking, but that was fine.

Overall, this recipe was very easy to make with other dinner/dessert componants, as you can work on it, let it cook, then go back. If you make this soup, add only a little sherry and keep tasting it until you think it's right.

Roasted Tomatoes

Roasted Tomato and Sherry Soup