Today was SO MUCH FUN!! First, Thank You, Julia for letting me visit your world! (http://oldworldsoups.com). Wow! I LOVE when people tell me they enjoyed our produce or flowers, but this was the very first time I experienced the true satisfaction of seeing all those pounds of tomatoes and basil go into a market stand product that Julia’s customers can’t seem to get enough of! AND – now I have proof that Thai basil is amazing.

I started out my day picking tomatoes and basil to take in to Julia’s kitchen space at Artisan Exchange in West Chester, PA. I ended up bringing her a bit smaller amounts, but its nearly mid-October, and the produce is beginning to slow down. This is what we ended up with to start:

Then – she put US to work – yes, it takes a LOT of labor to make this soup! – I cleaned and chopped tomatoes while another helper prepped the basil – Julia prepped the roasting pans and helped me to arrange the tomatoes for roasting.

While the tomatoes roasted, Julia and I chopped the onions and garlic, and our helper, Kathleen continued prepping basil. Julia began cooking down the onions and garlic in just a tad of butter on the commercial 6-burner stove (on my wishlist for sure).

Anna Karenina’s Kitchen Fire Roasted Thai Basil soup just before the blender

From the pictures you can guess the next steps – add the roasted tomatoes in proportion to the onions and garlic in each pan, and then blend them together into soup! There’s NO ADDED LIQUID at all – making this soup low-fat, vegetarian and almost vegan (just a pat of butter). Seeing this process was so special for me and Annie and for our future with  Lodal Creek Farm. Julia actually includes our farm name on her label. GO LOCAL! Thank you Julia for having me in your kitchen today!