Tomato Soup

The only tomato soup I have ever eaten has been out of a can or a carton.  My go to tomato soup was always Campbell's.  For some reason, when I get condensed soups, I have to get Campbell's.If I'm eating the carton soup, I feel like I'm eating gold - it's the Cristal of soups.   

I thought I had learned to make the condensed stuff the best it could possibly be by adding half and half to it instead of milk.  My friend, Katie, thought I was disgusting by mixing my tomato soup with any kind of milk.  I found her to be equally disgusting for mixing it with water.  Why not just drink some V8, Katie?  Yeah, that's right, I said it.

Tonight I made tomato soup from scratch.  I literally cut up tomatoes - I didn't use tomato paste or tomato sauce.  I used real tomatoes.  Ironically, the recipe does call for tomato juice, but I felt that was ok since I added 3lbs of tomatoes to two cups of juice.

Below is the recipe I found at stephanieodea.com.  She used her crock pot everyday for a year and blogged about it.  The soup was awesome!  Will I eat canned soup again?  Yes.  As easy as this soup was to make, it did take 6 hours to completely cook.  It was better than the carton stuff and about a quarter of the price.

--3 lbs of vine-ripened tomatoes
--1 med onion, chopped
--2 cups tomato juice
--1 cup cooking sherry
--3 T granulated white sugar
--1 gluten-free chicken boullion cube
--2 T chopped fresh basil

to add later:
--2 cups heavy cream
--salt and pepper to taste

optional:
sour cream and/or Parmesan cheese for garnish

The Directions.

Use a 5-6 quart crockpot for this soup.

Wash all of your tomatoes, and cut them in quarters. Nope, we're not going to peel the tomatoes, yay! To save your counter top from tomato gook, put your cutting board on a cookie sheet with sides. The juice will then stay inside the cookie sheet.

Put all the tomatoes in your crockpot.

Chop up the onion, and add it. Cover with the tomato juice and sherry, and drop in the boullion cube. Stir in the sugar and chopped basil.

Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

If you'd like your soup to have chunks, go ahead and stir in the cream. If you'd prefer a chunk-free soup, CAREFULLY use an immersible blender to soupify, or blend in small batches in a traditional blender. Then stir in the heavy cream.