Soup Season

It is soup season, which makes me happy.  I love soups. I think I could happily have soup for every meal, in fact, I just about did that today.  I had muesli for breakfast and drowned it in coconut milk (kind of like soup, right?)  I made a big batch of chili and had that for lunch (I always cook in big batches. Habit of being from a big family). For dinner I was planning on just having leftovers but I have been craving grilled cheese and tomato soup something bad, so I decided to make some tomato soup from scratch. I have done this before and always prefer it to the store bought kind.  Today, however, I did not have some semi-necessary ingredients and was not up for going to the grocery (ever have those days when you are already in your comfy clothes and the thought of running out one more time sounds just dreadful? Well, I was having one of those days...) I decided to just wing it with the tomato soup.  This is what I did:

• 3 whole tomatoes 
• 1 medium (or small) onion
• 1 Tablespoons Olive Oil 
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 cups chicken broth 

I added the olive oil to a pan and caramelized the onions then added the garlic. I chopped up my tomatoes and added that to the pan along with a some salt. After the tomatoes cooked up a little I added the chicken broth.  After tasting that I decided to make it into a basil tomato soup. I was already in the process of making pesto from earlier today so I just decided to combine the two. The taste was perfection.

This is how I make pesto
Pesto:

• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 1 bushel of basil
• 1 Tablespoon of pine nuts
• 3 cloves garlic 

I added it all to the food processor and made it nice and creamy. I put it back in the pan to simmer while I made my grilled cheese.

When I made my grilled cheese I used Cheddar cheese, swiss cheese, and mozzarella cheese. It made for a very tasty combination.    A plus to the whole endeavor was that Jude loved the soup too!