Creamy tomato and basil soup

No tomato soup is as good as a home made one on fresh tomatoes. Here's my recipe for a flavourful creamy fresh tomato soup with fresh basil. This recipe makes about 4 servings. 

1kg tomatoes

3 cups water

3 carrots

1 medium brown onion or 2 small ones

2 tbsp tomato purée

6 fresh basil leaves

⅓ tsp thyme

10 sun-dried tomatoes

⅕  to ¼  tsp mixed white and black pepper

½ tsp salt

½ cup crème fraiche (reduced fat if you want to be good)

Turn oven on to 180 degrees. Put 1 tbsp olive oil on an oven tray and heat up in the oven for about 10 minutes so the oil easily spreads over the tray. Cut tomatoes in half and place face down on the tray. Make a small cut on top of each tomato half to make peeling easier. Bake tomatoes in oven for about 15 minutes or until the skin starts to wrinkle. Peel and slice carrots, and chop onion. Take tomatoes out and while they are cooling down slightly bring 3 cups water to the boil with 2 vegetable stock cubes. Add carrots and onion and let boil for 10 minutes. Peel the skin off the tomatoes using two forks if too hot (if they have been in the oven long enough the skin should fall off easily, it’s fine if small pieces remain). Add tomatoes, tomato purée, chopped basil leaves, thyme, chopped sundried tomatoes, salt and pepper, and bring to the boil. Let boil with a lid on for 5-10 minutes. Liquidise the soup with a hand blender. Add crème fraiche and stir.

Garnish with basil leaves and serve with buttered bread.