As promised the Rainbow soup series is here beginning with RED. It's that time of year again with snow falling, temperatures chilling, and long, cold nights. It's time to break out the warm, comforting soup, chili and stew recipes to warm our hearts, souls and bodies.
Today's choice, Tomato Basil, pairs perfectly with a grilled cheese sandwich. It's simple but a classic. It's already vegetarian but if you want to make it vegan simply sautee in oil instead of butter.
TOMATO BASIL SOUP
Ingredients:
1/2 onion, minced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (28 oz) crushed tomato
3/4 cup vegetable broth
1 tbsp dried basil
salt and pepper to taste
optional: fresh basil and shredded cheese to garnish
Directions:
A very simple soup to make. Start by mincing your onion and garlic. Heat your pan on medium heat and melt your butter (or warm your oil if you're going vegan style.) Add your onion and sauté until translucent, add you garlic and continue cooking until your onions have a little colour to them. 
Add your broth.
**
protip ** use your broth to deglaze the pan. When you sauté onions to the point of browning a lot of those caramelized sugars get stuck to the pan. make sure to swish your liquid around to lift those bits because they are filled with flavour. In other recipes (or this one if you're feeling adventurous) left over wine (or a bit from a new bottle you've opened to decant for tonight) is used to do this adding and extra level of flavour. In this recipe you could opt for either red or white.
Bring that quickly to simmer, it wont take long. Add your tomatoes, basil and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. You can adjust taste and consistency from here but that's your soup! Dish it out into bowls and top with shredded cheese, fresh basil or both!** protip ** if you want to garnish with fresh basil I suggest laying your leaves flat together, rolling them up length wise and slicing to get uniform strands. This makes them easy to sprinkle as well as express the flavour and it will look nicer than whole leaves which will quickly wilt from the heat of the soup.
Serve with grilled cheese sandwich, bonus points if you make your sandwich with garlic bread!
It's metaphysical time!
So first and foremost I want to follow up with colour magic. This soup is about as primary red as it gets! Of course it isn't the only red soup out there but it is certainly a classic and very easy one at that. I also think that tomatoes themselves lend to the colour red very well as well as adding just a little balance with it's association with water.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. RED. As we talked about before red is associated with courage, passion, love, and sex from a traditional standpoint. I also brought up that, in my practice (as well as many other would agree I think) it is associated with Fire (and therefore has fast, intense energy) and the Root Chakra (where your physical sense of security is held.) So even if we look at nothing beyond its colour this soup packs quite a punch. While brown is traditionally used for magic of the home I think we could make an argument that red is a close second. It serves a slightly different purpose and is more focused on the people within your home and their energy than the home itself but it also works faster so it may serve as a quick fix while you work on something a little more substantial.
As for out actual ingredients I've decided to focus on simply Tomato and Basil. You of course can look into how the other ingredients can assist you in your working (soon I will have a page jsut for this.)
Tomatoes in the mundane world are good for your cardiovascular system (and liver.) It's no surprise then that they would also be associated with everything metaphorically associated with the heart, namely love and passion. And of course with this they are tied to the planet Venus and the Greek deities Aphrodite and Hera. Although I didn't find this anywhere in my research, for an element i would associate them with water due to their emotional nature as well as being associated with so much Feminine energy. This is where that balance that i mentioned before comes in. Despite tomatoes being the colour of fire they hold the energy of water, masculine and feminine, yin and yang. If we apply this to the fast acting home magic this may be the best red option you have as you can use it to bring the energy in any direction. If you find everyone's energy is heightened and on edge you can bring it down and ground it but also if everyone is feeling a little down you can raise the energy. Even better is if you have a mix of energies you can bring them all back to the middle.
(I just realized that they could easily be associated with a more physical cleansing tied in with their help in liver function!)
Basil lends itself to this idea very well as it is both a stress reliever and mood elevator. It really just cements the idea of balance when used in addition to tomatoes. Of course it also adds a layer of
protection as well and that's always a happy addition when were talking about our family's well-being.
Tomato Basil Soup
Overall- Fire: speed and power. A balance of yin and yang. Courage. Protection. Blood health. Love.
Red - Root Chakra: physical security and grounding. Fire: speed and power.
Sex, love and desire. Courage.
Tomato - Venus. Aphrodite and Hera. Feminine. Protection and revolution.
Health of cardiovascular system and liver.
Basil - Mars. Fire. Masculine.
Mood elevation and stress relief. Peace, love and finance. Luck and protection especially in travel (both physical and astral/liminal)
Short and Gritty
Ingredients:
1/2 onion, minced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (28 oz) crushed tomato
3/4 cup vegetable broth
1 tbsp dried basil
salt and pepper to taste
optional: fresh basil and shredded cheese to garnish
Directions:
1. Sauté onion, add garlic when onion is translucent, continue until light browning
2. Deglaze with broth
3. add tomatoes and spices
4. bring to boil
5. garnish (optional) and serve
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