Top Notch Creamy Tomato Soup

This is a very satisfying, old fashioned styled yet easy to make Tomato Soup: tasty simple, delicious, gratifying, and yeah, better than grandmas - ssh - but don't tell her ok?

Easy to make and oh so satisfying, I made this in advance of oral surgery when I knew I wouldn't be able to cope the next day. And was I ever glad I did. It kept my head afloat, and more. This one is a keeper and of course it goes great with rustic grilled cheese sandwiches. Great on a cold day. I also made the soup the day before, but blended it the next day. This soup is also great to make when you think you have nothing is your kitchen cabinets, since usually we have all the ingredients needed in the cupboards - just look and wow - you really do have them - so why are you wasting time, get cooking!


The Ingredients:

• 2 large cans of whole plum tomatoes in their juices


• 2 stalks celery-diced


• 2 carrots-diced


• 1 med. onion-diced


• 3 garlic cloves, minced


• 5 slices of bacon chopped up


• salt and fresh ground pepper


• 1 tablespoon olive oil


• 1 tablespoon parsley (optional)


• 1 cup cream, yes cream - half-n-half is ok to use as well as other substitutes like skimmed milk, but try and use the cream if you can - hey quick no one is looking!


• freshly ground Parmesan cheese to top it all off once ready to serve


• Equipment Needed: blender, soup pot with cover

The Directions:

1. In a large bowl open up cans of tomatoes and put into bowl.


2. Slice up bacon and place with a little olive oil into the cold soup pot. On medium heat, let bacon slowly crisp up.


3. While bacon is cooking, with own hands, carefully crush up tomatoes in large bowl - do your best not to squish onto yourself the tomato juices.


4. Once bacon is done, strain out bacon, but leave fat in.


5. Take diced up celery, carrots, onion and fresh ground pepper and let sweat in bacon fat till onion is translucent. Mmm getting there already! Sweat vs. sautée which means low to medium heat.


6. Add garlic, continue sweating (not you, but the vegetables) for two minutes, add "hand-crushed" tomatoes to pot.


7. Let simmer at least 45 minutes with cover on soup pot.


8. Taste and add salt as necessary. Let soup cooled down considerably before attempting to putting it into blender to liquidfy all soup in order to avoid blender popping its top and making a mess in your kitchen. Using a hand blender is great too and you can do it while it's still hot.


9. Next add cream while heat is low. It's now ready to serve.


10. Serve with rustic bread grilled cheeses if you like, sprinkle fresh parsley, the grated cheese, sprinkler with bacon bits and voila - the perfect top notch creamy tomato soup!

Want to print this out in various forms such as a recipe card, etc? Then click here:
Top Notch Creamy Tomato Soup @ Group Recipes By Divaliscious