There's truly nothing like a steamy bowl of soup on a chilly fall or winter day. Which is perhaps why meatless cookbook author Anna Thomas known for The Vegetarian Epicure series chose to release her newest soup-centric cookbook Love Soup during these here colder months. Though today we're featuring a mostly seasonal winter recipe, Love Soup includes soups for every season with root veggies appearing in fall/winter recipes, and peas and corn showing up in soups geared to warmer months. If you are lucky enough to live near a farmers market, you may noticed tangy-sweet blood oranges beginning to come into season. Likewise, you will probably have noticed fresh fennel bulbs which, with the addition of tomatoes, make up the bulk of this recipe. While Thomas calls for fresh tomatoes here, during colder winter months we suggest using canned San Marzano tomatoes imported from Italy. Tip: Canned tomatoes are a great option when fresh tomatoes are out of season because the canned varieties use tomatoes that are picked at their peak of ripeness and preserved via can so you get that fresh summer tomato flavor all winter long. Anna says: The fennel and blood orange in this soup support the flavor of the tomatoes in both sweetness and acidity, and add their own special taste without taking over. When everything is blended, the result is a tomato flavor with such depth and complexity that everyone will be wondering, what marvelous variety of tomato is that? Tomato and Fennel Soup with Blood Orange Serves 6 2 ½ lbs. ripe tomatoes 1 ½ Tbs. olive oil 1 medium yellow onion, chopped 1 large fennel bulb, chopped 1 tsp. sea salt, plus more to taste freshly ground black pepper cayenne 1 ½ cups basic light vegetable broth or canned vegetable broth ¾ cup fresh blood orange juice Garnish: 1 cup drained yogurt or crème fraîche 2 Tbs. sugar grated zest of 1 blood orange sprigs of fennel greens Cut crosses in the tomatoes with a sharp knife and scald them in boiling water for 1 minute, then drain, rinse with cold water, and slip off their skins. Cut the tomatoes into large pieces, saving all the juice. You should have about 5 1/2 cups of cut-up tomatoes. Heat the olive oil in a nonstick skillet. Add the chopped onion and fennel, sprinkled with a big pinch of salt and some pepper. Cook the vegetables over medium heat, stirring often, until they are soft and golden but not brown, about 20 minutes. Combine the cooked onion and fennel in a soup pot with the tomatoes and their juice, a pinch of cayenne, the vegetable broth, and the blood orange juice. Cover the pot and simmer the soup for about half an hour, or until the fennel is entirely soft and the tomatoes have released their juice and turned dark. Allow the soup to cool slightly and puree it until it is completely smooth, either in a blender, in batches, or with an immersion blender. Return the soup to the heat, bring it back to a simmer, and taste. Adjust the seasoning with additional salt and pepper if needed, and add a touch more broth if it seems too thick. Whisk the drained yogurt or crème fraîche with the sugar. Serve the hot soup in shallow bowls and sprinkle a tiny pinch of grated zest over each serving, then drop a big spoonful of the yogurt in the center of the bowl and garnish with sprigs of fennel greens.