Soup of the Week – Our Favorite Easy Creamy Tomato

There is nothing like grilled cheese and tomato soup.

The Hub and Kidzilla love the combo so much that when everyone else runs to the store ahead of a winter blizzard to buy milk and bread, I get marching orders for the makings of grilled cheese and tomato soup. It’s snow day food around here. And while we’re still far from snow days, this soup is great any time.

 

I’ve mentioned this soup on the blog before when I did the pilot edition of Soup of the Week, but it was lumped in with a couple of others and I never ran a full post for it. Kidzilla requested tomato soup recently, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to give it full attention.

If you’ve been reading here for a while, you likely know that the Fab Hub was not a soup fan when we first met. I don’t think I ever saw him order soup in a restaurant and he never thought it sounded like a good idea for dinner at home. I thought this was pretty strange, considering that his bachelor apartment pantry held a lifetime supply of canned soups. I really thought he was a soup guy.

Turns out the soup stash was kindness of the Hub’s Mom, who just wanted her son to have quick and easy meals on hand. So…soup! I guess when you have that much soup in your cupboard it turns you into a soup-hater. Or something. He’ll have to explain it himself.

Over the years, I’ve managed to convince the Hub that not all soups are created equal and that it is indeed possible to turn soup into a complete and satisfying meal. He seemed quite pleased to know that soup made at home and soup from a can were leagues apart and that was the end of our canned-soup buying days. The first time I made homemade tomato soup, though, the Hub told me firmly that it had to taste like Campbell’s or he wasn’t interested.

You could die from such a man. (Musical theater reference anyone? I’ll send you soup if you know it. Or something less difficult to mail…)

OK, anyway, I get it. There is something all childhood and snow day-ish about good old Campbell’s in a can. But I was determined to prove to the Hub that homemade tomato could be just as perfect.

The soup is from Food Network and Ina Garten. It’s in her book, Barefoot Contessa Foolproof: Recipes You Can Trust (2012). Simple and quick at just under an hour from start to finish, it is very doable on a weeknight. I almost don’t have to pay attention when I make this one. The croutons take the whole grilled cheese thing to the next level, if you’re into that that sort of thing.

Ina Garten’s Easy Tomato Soup & Grilled Cheese Croutons (from Food Network’s  website)

What you need:

• 3 tablespoons good olive oil
• 3 cups yellow onions, chopped (2 onions) – I use whatever onion I happen to have around, not specifically yellow. I’ve used white, shallots…whatever works.
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic (3 cloves)
• 4 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade – Your favorite box works fine, too.
• 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes, preferably San Marzano – True, these are good, but any brand works just fine.
• Large pinch of saffron threads
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup orzo – Kidzilla likes veggie alphabet noodles, so that’s our go-to choice.
• 1/2 cup heavy cream – I use light because we always have it on hand for the Hub’s Amazing Coffee. Oh, right, and it’s good to lighten up your cooking. Healthy and all that.
• Grilled Cheese Croutons (see separate recipe below)

What to do:

1. In a large pot or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions and cook over medium-low heat for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden brown. Add the garlic and cook for one more minute.
2. Stir in the chicken stock, tomatoes, saffron, 1 tablespoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Bring the soup to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, fill a medium pot with water, add 2 teaspoons salt and bring to a boil. Add the orzo and cook for 7 minutes. (It will finish cooking in the soup.) Drain the orzo and add it to the soup. Stir in the cream, return the soup to a simmer and cook for 10 more minutes, stirring frequently.
4. Serve hot with Grilled Cheese Croutons scattered on top. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

That’s it. It really is that easy and that is directly from the Food Network site.

I have some notes and comments already included with the ingredients, but here are just a few other thoughts…

When you make this soup for the first time, you may feel like it’s a whole lot of onion for the amount of soup. In fact, think that every time I make it. It really turns out just fine, but if you want to drop the amount of onion, I can’t see how it would hurt.

I have used just about every kind of onion there is except red. I just use whatever I have on hand – white, cooking, Vidalia, shallots. I think our favorite is with shallot, but that’s just our favorite kind of onion. This time around, I used some of the organic cooking onions from the CSA farm.

If you aren’t into making homemade stock or don’t happen to have any available, use your favorite ready-made box or can. In fact, when I included this in the Pilot Soup of the Week, I sort of scoffed the homemade broth thing; now it’s all I use if I can help it. It really is easy to make and I usually make a bunch and freeze it.

If you are awesome like Christine and know how to can your own tomatoes, you can use your own garden-fresh tomatoes for this. I am not that skilled, so store-canned it is.

UPDATE: I completely forgot – the instructions do not call for it, but I took my immersion blender to this soup because the Hub doesn’t really care for identifiable pieces of onion in his soup. The result was great and transferring to the Vitamix just didn’t feel necessary on this one.

The recipe calls for orzo in here, but as I mentioned above, Kidzilla loves Eden Foods veggie ABCs in here. You could use any other small pasta you like or even rice. The key is to cook the pasta or rice separately and add it to the soup. Otherwise you get that problem where your pasta or rice soaks up all the liquid from your soup. This time around, I boiled up some of our Halloween pasta from The Pasta Shoppe (not organic…but cute and fun) and floated a little handful in each person’s bowl.

We grabbed these at our supermarket, but the website has loads of fun pastas – great gift ideas, by the way!

I have never used the saffron. There is no substitute for saffron – it’s pretty specific – and I don’t keep it around. Since I generally have ingredients to make this soup on hand all the time, I don’t think to go buy the saffron. Plus, it’s pricey, so you have to really be willing to drop the cash on it. The soup is probably amazing with it, but it’s pretty amazing without, too.

Now, for those croutons…

Grilled Cheese Croutons

What You Need:

• 4 (1/2-inch-thick) slices country white bread
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 4 ounces Gruyere cheese, grated

What to Do:

1. Heat a panini grill. Place the four slices of bread on a cutting board and brush lightly with the melted butter, being sure to butter the corners. Turn the slices over and pile Gruyere on two of the slices. Place the remaining two slices of bread on top of the Gruyere, buttered sides up.
2. Grill the sandwiches on the panini grill for about 5 minutes, until nicely browned. Place on a cutting board, allow to rest for 1 minute and cut into 1-inch cubes.

We do not have a Panini grill, nor do any of us really care for Panini style sandwiches. We do whatever moves us on a particular day or based on what we have. I used sourdough slices and an aged Havarti for the sandwiches last night. We did not cut them into croutons because there was enough going on in the bowls with the spooky pasta. Our loaf was a nice small one, so we had smallish sandwiches – perfect.

To serve the soup, I just sprinkled a few chopped chives on top for a little color. I also put some red pepper flakes on mine. I served made-to-order salads on the side for everyone.

The three of us each had a bowl of soup for dinner. I have a small jar going to my Mom and a quart Mason jar in the fridge for another day.

What’s your favorite snow-day meal? Do you have a soup to suggest for a Soup of the Week post? Let me know!

Coming soon…May’s creamy mushroom request!

Enjoy!