Clear Tomato Soup

I'm going to start expanding my recipe range to include non-desserts and non-baked goods. Most of these types of recipes in the old cookbooks seem complex and not tasty. Fortunately for me, this clear tomato soup was easy to make and tasted pretty good. However, it was not clear. I'm guessing the title is to distinguish it from creamy tomato soup.

There are some homemade style tomato soups that are good, and then there are the homemade tomato soups that taste like pasta sauce. If I wanted to consume straight pasta sauce, I'd just open a jar and start drinking. This tomato soup is nothing like pasta sauce: it is a bit sweet and the clove is a bit strong. I'm going to play with the recipe in the future. I'll start by decreasing the amount of clove added and the amount of sugar added.

Clear Tomato Soup (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1 1/2 quarts fresh tomatoes (2.5lbs)
1 small bay leaf
1/4 C chopped onion
4 cloves (1 t ground clove)
1 T butter
1 T flour
1 t sugar
1 t salt
Pepper to taste

Cut up the tomatoes and place them in a pot. Add the bay leaf, onion, and cloves.

Boil this together for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Some people may complain about the smell of clove during the boiling process. Just ignore them, the clove smells good.

Press the soupy tomato mixture through a sieve into another pot or bowl.

Discard the skins and onion that don't go through the tiny holes. I ran the tomatoes through the sieve twice to make sure all the seeds were removed.

Rinse out the original pot you were using. Melt the butter in this pot over low heat. Stir in the sugar and flour. It will make a thick paste. Slowly add approximately 1/4 C of the strained (sieved?) tomato and stir until smooth. Heat this for a few minutes.

Slowly stir in the remaining tomato liquid. Constantly stir for 5 minutes over low heat.

Pour some into a bowl and enjoy! This soup would go great with french bread if you have any handy.