My Take
To me, tomato soup has always been one of those comfort meals. My mom and I used to add things like herbs and red pepper flakes to the humble Campbell's Soup can, making it totally new and very yum. So this recipe is dedicated to my mom. Love you, Mom <3
This choose-your-own adventure soup recipe can easily become one of those quick Fall dinners that doesn't require much thought or effort. All you have to think about it which cheese you want on your grilled cheese sandwich (I like Baby Swiss hehe). Along with the veggies listed below, you'll only need a cookie sheet, a blender and a big 'ole soup pot.
Ingredients
10 tomatoes
2 yellow onions
5 chili peppers
1 bulb of garlic
1 sprig each rosemary/thyme
salt/pepper to taste
olive oil
3 cups broth
1 cup heavy cream OR 2 cups milk
2 Tbsp brown sugar
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 400° F
Cover a large cookie sheet with foil or wax paper, whatever you have and spray with oil.
Roughly chop up the veggies (tomatoes, onions, and peppers) into quarters then place them on covered sheet. The garlic bulb can just be sliced open from the top and placed on the pan, no need to take out all of the individual cloves.
Next, you must season the vegetables to your hearts content. Please don't be shy and cover the entire sheet with salt, pepper, dried herbs like oregano, WHATEVER you want.
Drizzle with your favorite olive oil, then pop that pan into the oven and roast for 45 minutes.
While that's going, you can heat up the soup pot with about half a stick of butter and let the rosemary and thyme swim around and simmer on a low heat.
When the timer is done, get out your blender and dump all of the roasted content into the vessel, along with 3 cups of broth. I used a veggie stock for this go-around but you can use chicken broth if that's what you have in the pantry. The choice is yours.
Blend on high, until the tomatoes no longer look like tomatoes. At this point, you may notice a lot of veggie pulp that is going to make the soup very thicc and bisque-like. If you're cool with that, go ahead to the next step but if not you can grab a mesh strainer to sift out the tomato guts as your pour into the pot. (P.S. you can also keep the tomato guts for yummy lil pasta sauce moment.)
Again, you're going to dump the contents into another vessel, but this time it's the sizzling pot of butter and herbs, yummmm.
Stir around and bring to a light boil for 5 minutes.
Bring the heat to low, add the cream or milk + brown sugar, stir and you're done!
Last and arguably the most important step, enjoy with a grilled cheese sandwhich :)