Simply Delicious - Tomato Soup

The past few weeks I really have been starting the year off right by spending Sunday making one casserole type and one crock pot dinner to use for the rest of the week. The first week I Shepherd's pie and pork "stir fry". This week was protein packed pasta in Squash Mac and Cheese, and Garlicy Chicken Stew also from the WW cookbook (a surprising good cookbook, especially the binder format). These healthy meals have kept us from eating out during lunch and not ordering out at night.

My favorite part of this method is I have time on weeknights to do "fun" cooking. For Christmas I was given a bread machine from J's mother and have had a lot of fun experimenting with it. So far I have made Cinnamon Raisin Bread twice and a loaf Honey Wheat Bread. I also made some whole wheat pizza dough last week that I will be using when I get home tonight, hopefully good news on that tomorrow. Bread machine fun is for later though.

Now back to the point of my post. At the end of last year I was getting a little overwhelmed with recipes and planning. Because of that I am trying to do things "Simply." I always need a bit more structure so here's to Thursday recipes and maybe Monday knitting. With the weather finally starting to feel like winter and everyone feeling it by passing around colds, last night I really needed a comforting but simple dinner that let me use up some perishables and use some of my stocked pantry items. I had an opened can of whole tomatoes and cheddar cheese. To me that sounds a lot like tomato soup and grilled cheese. When I got home from work I crushed a handful of garlic cloves with a glass, put them on a piece of tin foil, covered them in olive oil and then packed it up and stuck it in the toaster oven for 20 mins. After that you have some nice roasted garlic. The roasted garlic is then joined by the whole tomatoes a few cubes of tomato paste and a handful of frozen beef broth cubes. My freezer also has mini cubes of basil that I added to the pot. Once that is heated through pour it into a blender and puree until smooth. Put it back into the pot heat and add some fat free half and half for some creaminess.

Ta Da!