Week 6: Tomato & Fennel Soup

Only 3 more weeks of winter soups, and still so many yummy soups to make. I've never cooked or eaten fennel (just the seeds) so I was very curious how this would come out. A woman at the farmer's market even asked me what I was going to do with all that fennel, and I answered "soup" with a big smile, and then she asked me what it tastes like and I answered "I don't know," pretty embarrassed.

I mostly choose to make the tomato & fennel soup since I had some creme friache left that I needed to use up. It was a costly ingredient, so I didn't want to let it go to waste. Also, with all this soup making, I've been freezing the extra chicken broth, and was able to use it for this soup. So by far, this was the best bargain soup of the Souper Challenge. Because many of my ingredients came from home, I spent $5.45 on this soup. Still, it's more of an appetizer than main dish, so your family would still need an entree. But it was super quick & easy to make, so I'd say to go for it! I will absolutely be making this again.


Oh, and another cool thing... I was thrown off by my search for fresh tarragon. It was not at my farmer's market, and it was not at Real Produce, and I really didn't want to buy a whole jar of dried spice knowing I would never use it again and it would probably cost more than all the rest of my ingredients combined. I remembered Whole Foods sold bulk spices, so I went over there and filled a little baggy full of dried tarragon (using the rule of half as much dried herb than fresh herb) and went to the checker to pay. Free! My baggy wouldn't weigh, so Whole Foods gave me some free herbs for my soup this month. And it was kinda fun putting a itty bitty plastic bag of dried herbs in my purse too. I got a little chuckle out of that. ;-)


To make the soup, I chopped the fennel, carrots and onions. The fennel was easy to cut and so fragrant. I was sure to cut off all stalks and remove the middle core. Once chopped, I sauteed all the veggies in olive oil until soft and then added the tarragon, salt, tomatoes and broth. This was brought ot a simmer and continued to simmer for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, I pureed the soup in batches and returned to the pot. I whisked in the creme friache and added more salt to taste. And thats it! Done! Easy! I served with a dollop of creme friache, but that was not necessary since there was plenty in the soup already; it was more for the presentation. The fennel really came through in a good way. It gave an earthy flavor to the soup and the smell was amazing. Consensus: I like fennel! It was a big Superbowl Sunday hit for the fam. Definitely a starter to a much bigger menu and not too filling at all.


The recipe also called for a bit of Pernod liquor. Apparently this is a licorice flavored liquor. I chose not to include it since I'm not a huge fan of licorice and I didn't want to go looking for this liquor and purchasing it just for this soup. I thought of adding an anise extract to it since I did have some on hand (left over from holiday baking), but again, I thought the fennel gave enough of the earthy licorice flavor, and I was already very happy with the soup. I suppose I can try the extract in my leftovers in a small amount, but might not. I think the soup is great just the way it is.


Ingredients:
1/4 cup olive oil / from home
3 cups (4 fennel bulbs) / $1.00 each = $4.00 / farmer's market
1/2 cup chopped carrots / $0.50 / farmer's market
1 cup chopped onion / from home
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes / $0.95 / Smart & Final
1 tablespoon tarragon / free / Whole Foods
4 cups chicken broth / from home
Salt / from home
Creme Friache / from home

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Servings: 6
Taste: 4
Prep: super easy
Cost: $5.45