Cheesy Fresh Tomato Soup

I have never made fresh tomato soup and had no intention of making it but I walked into the kitchen and saw two fresh red tomatoes on the counter and the idea hit me. I do like tomato soup a lot and if it's done right, it's one of the best soups you can have (bye bye Campbells!).

I blanched the tomatoes whole to the remove the skins, then sautéed some white onion, lots of garlic, dried basil and other Italian seasonings, and a little red chile paste in a decent amount of butter until the vegetables were soft and fragant. Purée the vegetables and skinless tomatoes in a blender until smooth, slowly adding back some of the warm water used to blanch the tomatoes. Return to the stockpot and simmer slowly. Add salt, pepper, lemon juice to taste, purée some raw carrot/celery in a little water and add to the mixture, and add some tomato paste for color. If you do add carrots, you'll have to skim quite often to remove that gunk floating on the top that carrots always seem to leave behind. At the end after it had reduced a bit, I added some heavy cream but this is not required.

After I was letting the soup cool, I decided I wanted some intensely flavored crunchy pork for topping. I didn't have any bacon or pork belly/chicharron but I chopped and seasoned some boneless rib meat and fried it until it was crunchy enough.

Serve the soup topped with the pork, croutons, cheese, and garnish with fresh parsley. This was one of the best soups I've ever made.