Tomato Soup Circus

If you ever invited friends with picky kids and one or two vegans or vegetarians and wondered how to make ends meet, then the Tomato Soup Circus is a great starter for starts.

What you need

12-15 tomatoes 
3-4 onions 
3-5 garlic cloves 
4-5 carrots

brown sugar
olive oil
water

Additional ingredients:
soft goat cheese or cream cheese or sour cream 
cream 

chili
coriander
ketchup
red kidney beans
coconut milk

1-2 bouillon cubes
black pepper

dried chili

white wine

turmeric powder

For decoration: 

different coloured cherry tomatoes

mozzarella pearls

avocado

mini meatballs

fresh basil leaves

mascarpone


How to do it

Peel and slice the onions, peel and crush the garlic cloves, peel and cube the carrots.

Pour plenty of olive oil in a saucepan, add the onions and carrots, heat up and stir until the onions turn translucent. Add the crushed garlic and one tablespoon sugar at the end.

Add water and the tomatoes -let boil until the carrots are soft.

Divide into four saucepans now -adjusting the amounts in each pan according to the number of your different guests.
For safety, you can draw a map and name the pans regular (R), kids (K), vegetarian (V1) and vegan (V2) (and this is not to imply vegetarians, vegans or kids are irregular in any way, nor does it imply that vegetarians are superior to vegans -or vice versa).

The regular and vegan + vegetarian goes first; add chopped chili to the vegan/vegetarian and regular, let them simmer on low heat. 

Optional step: Add red kidney beans to the vegan pan if you think your vegan friends need more protein in their diet. 

Rev up your hand blender and start with the vegan soup (they are usually the most sensitive to any contamination), do the kids & vegetarian soup as second and the regular's as third.

Now, if you wish or have to, you can leave the pans on their own, on low or no heat.

Once you're back collect the rest of the ingredients and do the following:

Add cream or cream cheese and a squirt of ketchup into the K soup.

Add soft goat cheese (or cream cheese or sour cream, or regular cream) and coriander to the R and V1 soup (unless one of your R or V1's suffer from lactose intolerance, then serve them V2 soup).

Add coconut milk in the V2 soup.

Now ask yourself, does any of your R, V1 or V2 or K friends have blood pressure problems? If yes, the best solution would be to invite them more often or buy them a pet. If this is not possible, you will need to monitor the sodium levels of the food you serve.

You may choose to use Himalayan salt, no salt or low-sodium salt. If high blood pressure isn't an issue, you can add 1-2 bouillon cubes in  the regular soup and salt for the others.

Add white wine in R, V1 and V2 soups. As tempting as it may be, do not drink any wine yourself, the trickiest part is yet to come.

Add spice and taste: The K soup is supposed to have a mild and sweet taste. 

The R and V1 soups benefit from moderate amounts of coriander, turmeric and black pepper. The V2 soup may need more spice and some additional chili if you used red kidney beans.

 
Serving and decoration:

Put yellow, orange and red cherry tomato halves and mozzarella pearls in the kids soup. A tip to keep the kids longer at the table: Cook ABC pasta, and let the kids decorate their soups themselves with the alphabets.

Decorate the R soup with  basil leaves, meatballs, a spoonful of mascarpone and chili.

V1 soup is decorated with avocado, chili, mozzarella pearls and basil leaves.

V2 soup is decorated with chili and basil leaves.

Do you feel the need to impress your guests and give them a sense of how hard you've worked? 

Print a few copies of this recipe and leave them in visible spots around the house. Apply water resistant make-up, and when the door bell rings, quickly spray some Evian water on your face before you open the door.