Easier Tomato Soup
Tomato soup might be the perfect food. It tastes good with grilled cheese, you can put hot sauce in it and you can drink it out of a mug when you run out of clean spoons and bowls (which happens around here more than I would like to admit).
I really like the carton of tomato soup I buy at Trader Joe’s and bonus, Six will eat it. I also love the homemade tomato soup I make from Contessa Garten’s excellent recipe, which I have changed over time to suit my taste.
Is there a halfway point between the carton and Contessa Garten?
I found a recipe that seems a little simpler so I decided to try it and see. It had to do two…no, three things.
- It has to be easier than the Contessa Garten recipe
- Six has to eat it
- It has to taste better than the carton
Easy, right?
Wrong.
Six would not touch it and it wasn’t that much easier than Contessa Garten’s. I looked up her recipe and it is really easy, except for the hilarious amount of onions you have to chop. So as much as I liked the recipe I tried, I cannot recommend it. What I will do is rerun my version of Contessa Garten’s recipe along with a picture of the soup I made just because it was pretty.
That is all.
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 and 1 half cups yellow onions, chopped (1 onion)
1 tablespoon minced garlic (3 cloves)
4 cups chicken stock
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup orzo
1/2 cup milk (if you don’t have whole milk or want it richer, add a couple tablespoons of butter as well as the milk)
- 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 1 more minute. Stir in the chicken stock, tomatoes, 1 tablespoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Bring the soup to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
- 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 milk (and butter if you want it), return the soup to a simmer and cook for 10 more minutes, stirring frequently.
- Top with shredded parmesan cheese or fresh basil if you have it.
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