Chef Meg's Tomato Soup

By Margannl

Ingredients

• 2 T olive oil 1 yellow or white onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced 2 pounds tomatoes, de-seeded, chopped
• 1/4 t red pepper flakes
• 1 T brown sugar
• 1/2 t thyme, dried
• 4 oz. bread, crust removed (about 4 small slices)
• 12 oz chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 T balsamic vinegar black pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup croutons (optional)
• 2 T blue cheese crumbles (optional)

Details

Servings 8
Adapted from recipes.sparkpeople.com

Preparation

Step 1

Top this with a bit of blue cheese (nutrition not included) for a real pop of flavor. At under 100 calories a serving, you can afford to add some fun toppings to this soup.

Chef Meg used chicken stock because she had a homemade version on hand. You can easily make this a vegetarian (and vegan) soup by using vegetable stock.

NOTE: This is a rare case where you need to use white bread rather than wheat or whole-grain. If you do only have whole-grain bread in your house, congratulations! You can use that bread, but be sure to remove the crusts.

Serve this with--what else?--a grilled cheese sandwich. Choose low-fat cheese and really good whole-grain bread.

Heat oil in a stock pot or tall saucepan. Add onion and garlic; saute for 5 minutes. Add tomatoes and stir to combine. Add pepper, sugar, thyme and bread to mixture; cook for 3 minutes. With an immersion blender or food processor, blend the mixture. If using an immersion blender, take care not to splatter tomatoes all over yourself! (This is why you need a tall pan.) Slowly add stock to mixture and combine. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add vinegar during last two minutes.
Makes 8 one cup servings.

Number of Servings: 8

Recipe submitted by SparkPeople user CHEF_MEG.