Roasted Garlic Tomato Bisque

My favorite thrift store in the whole world is Good Cheer on Whidbey Island.  When I was a teenager, we would come up to the cabin all summer, and I would buy my entire fall wardrobe at Good Cheer and be overly proud about it.  I'm pretty sure I said a total of about twenty words all through high school, and every single one probably was in some way boasting about this wonderful thrift store 900 miles away floating in the middle of the Puget Sound.  





Well we still find treasures there.  Skirts, cooking spoons, beach sweaters, old bracelets, games... When I was pregnant with Violet, I did puzzles around the clock, and most of them came from Good Cheer.
It is a wonderful store.

Well, what do you know-- My favorite store has recently published their own cookbook (which we very quickly and enthusiastically purchased)!  It's The Good Cheer 50th Anniversary Cookbook.  Oh my goodness, what a crazy wonderful mix of recipes and photos.  The book kind of embodies the thrift store itself; very funky and old-school with all of these odd but lovable photos of food that look like they were taken about forty years ago.  About a third of the recipes are just photocopies of old hand-written rambling directions for how to make bread, soup, relish sauce, etc..--maybe originally written on napkins by someone's great grandma.  It's really very endearing, and I love it to pieces.

Also, all of the recipes I have tried from this book so far have been fantastic!  Maybe also like a thrift store, a lot of these recipes are kind of oldies but goodies.  Right after we bought it, Tyler and I were reading through the book while sitting in the ferry line, and decided that most of the recipes reminded us of a very country or down on the farm style of cooking with a Northwest twang.  Many of the recipes use very local ingredients like shellfish and berries and tons of veggies-- yummmm!

Anyway, I wanted to share one of the recipes with you.  It is for Roasted Garlic Tomato Bisque.  Apparently a bisque is different from a soup in that it is exceptionally creamy and smooth, and often uses wine as an ingredient in a very French way.  I'm sure there are other qualifications or hurdles a soup must cross before it wins the honorary title of Bisque... I think some people would say that it has to have seafood in it (so maybe this recipe, coming from Whidbey Island, once had seafood in it as well as tomatoes and garlic and cream?)  Who knows.  It does contain a good amount of dill, and paired with the richness of the cream and wine, I do think you could add some fish or clams to it, and it would be delightful.

It is a very very good soup.  I mean Bisque.
And Violet couldn't get enough of it.  It is very rich;  take yourself into creamy oblivion and serve it with a good grilled cheese (that is of course what we did :)

Roasted Garlic Tomato Bisque




8-10 Roma tomatoes, sliced
1 large yellow onion, sliced
about 10 cloves of garlic, peeled
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup butter
3/4 cup dry white wine
3/4 teaspoon dill
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1 tablespoon brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste
pinch of cayenne pepper
15 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 cube of chicken bouillon (I left this out, and didn't miss it)
1/4 cup flour
1 cup whipping cream
1 quart chicken broth


1) Preheat oven to 375

2) Arrange sliced tomatoes, onions, and whole garlic cloves on sheet pan.  (If you have a kitchen elf, she or he can help you with this).

3) Season with salt, pepper, and olive oil

4) Roast 30-40 minutes, turning half way through

5) Transfer to a large soup pot, over med-hi heat.

6) Add butter, white wine, dill parsley, 3 more cloves of garlic chopped fine, brown sugar, kosher salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, 15 oz can diced tomatoes, and chicken bouillon (if using).  Saute a few minutes.

7) Sprinkle with flour and cook while stirring, 3-4 minutes.

8) Add cream and chicken broth, simmer until thickened, about 15 minutes.

9) Use a hand blender and blend until smooth (or you can use a regular blender, transferring the soup in batches.