busboys and poets and tomato soup

The Busboys and Poets finally opened by my house! I've been so stoked for them to open since they have a lot of organic/gluten free items on their menu. Mike, Renee, Dale and I recently went for dinner. We started out with some drinks, Mike and I got organic IPA's while Dale got a Peach Woodchuck and Renee got wine.

Draaanks.

I got the shrimp and grits.

Looks small but the portion size was actually pretty generous. I've never had an issue with restaurants serving too big of portions. Hello?! Leftovers!! Two meals for the price of one. The shrimpies were in a cajun cream sauce on top of aparagus, corn, tomaters and onions. Topped with fried basil grit cakes. I cannot say enough good things about it.

Mike got the grass-fed meatloaf

Also super tasty. I know because I tried it, like I tried everyone else's food at the table. That is a red wine sauce on the side, and I wish I could get the recipe for it.

Renee got the crab cakes

They were also decently sized and I really liked them. Sometimes it's hard to come by a good crabcake, especially for this Maryland girl.

Dale got a shrimp and sausage pasta.

For dessert we took home a chocolate cake for all of us to split. But in reality, I demolished most of it. Whaddya gonna do.

So, inspired by Renee making some awesome tomato soup, I felt the need to try and recreate it. I was craving it so bad! So I rounded up my ingredients:

-4 large tomatoes from the farmers market

-1 pint colorful cherry tomatoes from the market

-1 large onions

-several cloves of garlic

-lots of fresh basil

-butter

-cream

-REAL chicken stock, the gelatinous goodness

-red pepper flakes

I tossed the cherry tomatoes in a baking pan

Chopped the large tomatoes

See how gorgeous they are?! Never thought I'd be the type to refer to tomatoes as gorgeous.

And I roasted them under the broiler.

While they were roasting I sauteed an onion and  garlic, and added the tomatoes to the onion along with some chicken stock. At the very end I added the basil and cream. Then put it in the Vitamix.

I probably should've taken a more attractive picture. But I forgot to. This was snapped when I had the soup for lunch the next day. Go me.