You Say Tomato, I Say No Problem

There is one food that I can point to as being the most detested, loathed, dreaded food of my childhood, and it's name is Tomato.  This was a problem for me as a child, because one of my mother's favorite foods was (again) Tomato.  She would serve it, sliced and possibly salted, on our dinner plates, and one of my earliest childhood memories--one that I have never forgiven my mother for--is of being forced to sit in front of said plate until I forced myself to consume said Tomato, despite the fact that the flavor of this raw, salted tomato was so loathesome as to invoke an involuntary gag reflex whenever I put a piece into my mouth.  The way my child mind remembers it, I had to sit there for over four hours--which probably means I was there at least twenty minutes.

So, I think it's a testament to how much my palate has grown that the ingredients for last night's dinner consisted of scarcely more than this:

Almost five pounds of lovely, not-sinister-at-all tomatoes!  They were less than $1 a pound, so I decided it was time to make some homemade Tomato Soup.  (The recipe is from Food Network Magazine, naturally.) I only made the tomato soup part of the recipe this time; I invented my own grilled cheese sandwiches, which ended up being muenster and gouda with bologna, on grilled garlic bread.  

It all turned out so delicious, and smelling so good, that I forgot to take a picture of the meal for the blog, so you all will have to settle for a picture of the leftover servings of soup.  My sweetie thinks I have ruined her for canned tomato soup for life!

As for me, I think I can say I have finally cured my aversion to tomatoes for life.  Though I doubt I will ever choose to serve them sliced and salted as a side dish...