Cream Of Tomato Soup

Total Time: 20 mins Preparation Time: 5 mins Cook Time: 15 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 8
• 2 (14 -16 ounce) cans stewed tomatoes
• 2 (14 -16 ounce) cans diced tomatoes with juice
• 1/4 cup butter (preferred) or 1/4 cup oil
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 pinch allspice
• 1 3/4 cups chicken broth, low sodium preferred
• 1 1/2-2 cups heavy cream or 1 1/2-2 cups half-and-half or 1 1/2-2 cups milk
• salt and pepper

Recipe

• 1 place a strainer over a large measuring cup. drain and save the juice from both stewed and diced tomatoes. press down on the tomatoes with the back of a spoon to drain more juice. measure 3 cups juice, discard excess or save for another use. (bloody mary anyone?) set aside both juice and tomatoes.
• 2 melt the butter in a large pot, sprinkle in the flour; stir and cook 1 minute. add the brown sugar, tomato paste and allspice; stir.
• 3 whisk in the chicken broth gradually; then add the reserved tomato juice and both kinds of tomatoes.
• 4 bring to a boil, stirring frequently. reduce to a simmer and cook 10 minutes.
• 5 puree with an immersion blender, food processor or blender. don’t fill more than halfway if using a food processor or blender and cover with a kitchen towel before turning it on. leave as chunky as you like and call it a bisque or puree smooth for cream soup.
• 6 pour through a strainer into the same pot.
• 7 heat cream/milk in microwave until steaming, stir into soup. heating the cream/milk helps keep it from curdling.
• 8 bring back to simmer. do not boil after adding cream/milk - it will curdle. taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper, more cream/milk or more sugar if desired.
• 9 pureeing tomato seeds can make the soup a little bitter; adding a little more brown sugar will remove the bitterness.