Tomato, Tomahto

I love, love, love tomato soup. I love to slurp it, dunk grilled cheese into it, and drink it. I love it. I love it creamy and so hot it burns my taste buds off. I am not a big fan of tomatoes or tomato juice, but I love me some soup.

My love of tomato soup has transferred to Avery. She may think Jeopardy is boring but she redeems herself when she asks for tomato soup for dinner. She's a big fan of little noodles in her soup with a crispy pickle on the side. She's a culinary genius.

I do believe there are some things in life you can buy generic and things that you have to splurge on. Canned tomato soup is one of those splurges. You must spend the $1.00 for Campbell's and just forget about the $.50 you could save by buying store brand. It's not good. Not good at all. Trust me, I know. And Avery knows.

Even though I have never even thought of making my own tomato soup when a can is super easy to open, I HAD to when I came across this particular recipe. I received it in an e-mail newsletter from familyfun.com.  It was a kid-friendly recipe that was ridiculously easy and inexpensive to make, so we gave it a try. Here is what happened.

Avery was in charge of mixing some olive oil on the cherry tomatoes. I added the salt and pepper later in case she had any owies on her hands. Look at how intense her face is!

Cherry tomatoes all oiled and seasoned up, ready to be put in the oven to turn yummy.

Cherry tomatoes after roasting. If I was one that would ever get an urge to just pick up a tomato and eat it, this would be that time. But that urge did not overtake me, so I didn't.

Then you get all this good stuff. So far, this soup is starting off pretty darn good: roasted tomatoes, onion, butter and garlic. MMMM.

Here's where my audience arrived. She forced me to pull a chair over, gave me this look, and then bailed. I guess the show wasn't entertaining enough.

When the audience left, I moved the chair out of the way. This is what I found. Those poor little goldfish. They have no idea where their fate lies, but I do. They will be devoured by the furry creature who lives in my house. R.I.P. fishies.

You are going to need a can of these and a box of this, too. Here's another store brand conundrum. Cheap canned tomatoes taste like cheap canned tomatoes. This is a lesson that is learned the hard way. Canned tomatoes, name brand or not, are fairly cheap. Go for the good stuff. You will be much happier in the end.

When it comes to the broth, store brand works just fine in any situation, I think. I bought this particular box because I had a coupon that made it cheaper than the store brand.

As for the nukey, that is optional. I confiscated that from the audience. You can't be a big girl standing on a chair and suck on a nukey at the same time.

The audience is back with a bag of fruit snacks. I refused to open it for her. She never eats them. She throws them on the floor and then feeds them to the dog. There already is a bag on the floor, open. She was not getting a second bag. She was not happy with my answer.

She gave me "the hand" and ran away.

Alright, back to the soup. Here's what it all looks like dumped in a pot. There were a few steps in between that I skipped that were just too boring.

This is the roasting pan from the tomatoes and my audience's hands. The hands were splashing in the bubbles.  She ran away, yelling, "Bubbles!" This was the first time she has ever said 'bubbles' but Avery heard it too, not just me. It happened. It never happened again.

Now I had to wait patiently for 40 whole minutes while this beautiful concoction simmered and stewed. All the onions, garlic, butter, and tomatoes smelled glorious.

After the soup simmers, you have to puree it in a blender or food processor. I don't have a blender and my food processor is only 3 cups big. It took about 8 batches to get it all blended. It was a slow process. Just remember not to fill your blending receptacle up too far because the hot soup will expand when you start it up.  Just a warning.

It was messy.

My audience didn't help clean up. She was watching "Yo Gabba Gabba." I despise that show. It creeps me out. But it makes my kids quiet while I cook supper. Oh, and look at the furry little guy pretending to be all cute. Notice how he's not looking at me but rather into the kitchen? That's because he is plotting. He is hoping I will stop paying attention to the kitchen long enough for him to go get his grubby little paws on something. Not going to happy, my friend. Not today. Not on my clock.

Hi Avery! No response. It's like DJ Lance puts her in a trance. Notice the butterfly blanket. It's part of the family. It is the best blanket ever.

Soup. Now you need this to make it all creamy and delicious.

See? Creamy. Delicious. And you better not be making fun of my pots. Those pots are thirty plus years old and they are awesome. You can not buy pots like these anymore.

I ate mine while standing in the kitchen making the little people more grilled cheese. Doesn't it look good? It tasted really good. Better than you would think!



Just a few notes on the recipe and method.

1. Next time, I would make my garlic into a paste instead of having it minced. My little food processor did not get the garlic any smaller than a mince while pureeing so there were little garlic bits. It was fine, but I really like a tomato soup that I can drink. I don't think I would substitute with garlic powder because the taste would not be there.

2. Cherry tomatoes are very sweet, which is probably why a kids magazine would use them for a recipe geared towards kids. After adding the cream, I added A LOT of pepper and a palm full of crushed red pepper flakes. The pepper flakes did not make it spicy. They just took some of the sweetness away.

Otherwise it was a hit. Avery told me it was better than the stuff in a can but wished it didn't have the little chunks. We will definitely make this again. Avery said we should grow our own cherry tomatoes this summer so we can make it all the time!

Here is the link to the full recipe:

http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/roasted-tomato-soup-699298/