I’ve been craving tomato basil soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for a few weeks now.  I was trying to wait until it got cold again, but it didn’t look like we were ever going to get out of the 70’s (I should have waited until this weekend).  So last weekend I set out to find a recipe for a homemade tomato soup.

The last couple of times I have tried to cook something new by following a recipe, disaster struck.  A few months ago I attempted to make a french toast casserole ala Paula Deen, but it wound up being a soggy, buttery mess.  I was pregnant at the time, and had wanted to take that casserole to our last birth class (our class chose to celebrate our last meeting with breakfast foods).   Around the same time, I got a craving for chicken and dumplings.  I worked on that meal for 3 hours… and the dumplings wound up being hard on the outside and not cooked all the way through.  Needless to say, I cried a lot and decided to lay off cooking new things for a while.

So, I read several recipes and decided to kind of combine elements from each one.  Crafty Aunt Amanda was over that evening helping me make gifts for my midwife and birth assistant, so she got to eat dinner with us.  According to Amanda (and Chris) the soup was really tasty.  Here’s a rough outline of what I did:

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What to use:-ish  (I may have added a little more or less of some of these items.  I’m not very good at measurements.):

What to do: (I’m also not very good at typing up recipes. If you have questions about how I did something, ask!)

1.  Heat up the olive oil in a skillet. Add carrots and onions and cook until soft (about 10 minutes).  Add basil and garlic and cook for a bit longer (5 minutes-ish).

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2.  Put tomatoes, tomato sauce, and chicken broth into a big pot.  Add cooked veggies.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer.  Do this for at least 30 mins… I actually cooked mine on low heat for an hour.  I was also waiting for Chris to get home, so I had the extra time.

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3.  Let soup cool a little, then transfer to a blender or food processor and puree before returning to the pot.  Some recipes called for straining the soup before returning it the pot, but I don’t mind the occasional chunk of vegetable, so I didn’t strain mine.  I am also lazy.

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4.  Stir in the cream over low heat until soup is heated through.  Add some salt and pepper to taste…. I like a lot of black pepper.  Some recipes called for red pepper to give it a kick, but I left that out for my first go ’round.  Maybe next time.

And then I made some simple grilled cheese sandwiches to serve with the soup.  There was absolutely nothing special about them.  Just some freshly sliced cheddar cheese melted on wheat bread.

So, that was my first time making tomato basil soup.  It was pretty tasty and that recipe made enough for the three of us to each eat a large bowl and have enough leftover to freeze for later.  If anyone tries this soup for themselves, let me know how it turns out!