Tomato Feta Soup — A Bowl of August, Saved for Winter

Six weeks. Forty-two days. Clay comes home in October. I'm counting the way I counted before he left — automatic, involuntary, each number a step on a staircase that leads to the front door of this house and my son walking through it.

Amber is settling into the nursing job. She called on Wednesday, not about patients this time but about herself. She said "Dad, I think I want to work in the ER." Not the med-surg floor where she is now — the emergency room. Where the trauma comes in. Where the car accidents and the overdoses and the heart attacks arrive and you have minutes, sometimes seconds, to make decisions that determine whether someone lives. She wants the adrenaline. She wants the challenge. She wants to be the person who stands between the dying and the dead and says not today.

I said "Are you sure?" She said "I've never been more sure about anything." I believe her. I believe her because Amber has never once been wrong about what she wanted. She wanted nursing. She got nursing. She wanted UK Hospital. She got UK Hospital. She wants the ER. She'll get the ER. The Hensley stubbornness, which in Earl manifested as coal mining and in me manifested as construction and in Clay manifested as the Army, in Amber manifests as a relentless, directed march toward the place where she can do the most good. That's the best version of stubbornness. That's stubbornness with a stethoscope.

This week: garden bounty. The tomatoes are overwhelming — I'm picking a gallon a day and can't eat them fast enough. Time to preserve. I made tomato sauce — the same method as year one, but better this time because I roasted the tomatoes first at 425 until they blistered and collapsed, which concentrates the flavor and adds a depth that raw tomatoes don't achieve. Roasted tomatoes blended with garlic and basil and olive oil and a pinch of sugar, simmered for thirty minutes, then into freezer bags. Ten bags. Ten bags of August, stored for January, when the world is gray and the garden is sleeping and a bag of roasted tomato sauce is a time machine back to the week when the Cherokee Purples were ripe and my daughter wanted the ER and my son was six weeks from home.

Ten bags of roasted tomato sauce in the freezer is its own kind of satisfaction, but while the oven was already running hot and the tomatoes were already piled up on the counter, I made one more thing for right now — something to eat this week, not save for January. Tomato Feta Soup is what happens when you let the garden speak for itself: roasted tomatoes, a little briny feta, and enough warmth to feel like you earned it. It felt right to have something immediate, something that said the harvest is happening now, Clay is almost home now, and Amber is becoming exactly who she was always going to be.

Tomato Feta Soup

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 3 lbs fresh Roma or heirloom tomatoes, halved
• 1 medium yellow onion, roughly chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, unpeeled
• 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 2 cups vegetable broth (or chicken broth)
• 6 oz crumbled feta cheese, divided
• 1 tablespoon fresh basil, chiffonade, for serving
• Crusty bread, for serving

Instructions

1. Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 425°F. Arrange the halved tomatoes and chopped onion on a large rimmed baking sheet. Tuck the unpeeled garlic cloves among the tomatoes. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, season with salt, pepper, oregano, and red pepper flakes, and toss to coat.
2. Roast until blistered. Roast for 30–35 minutes, until the tomatoes are collapsed, caramelized at the edges, and beginning to blister. The skins will split and the juices will pool on the pan — that’s the concentrated flavor you want. Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes.
3. Peel the garlic. Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins directly onto the baking sheet. Discard the skins.
4. Blend the base. Transfer all of the roasted tomatoes, onion, garlic, and pan juices to a blender (or use an immersion blender in a large pot). Add 4 oz of the crumbled feta and 1 cup of broth. Blend until smooth, working in batches if needed. For a slightly rustic texture, blend 80% smooth and leave some chunks.
5. Simmer and adjust. Pour the blended soup into a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the remaining cup of broth and the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened. Taste and adjust salt as needed.
6. Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with the remaining crumbled feta and fresh basil. Serve with crusty bread for dipping.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 185 | Protein: 7g | Fat: 13g | Carbs: 12g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 520mg