Tomato, Cheese, and Basil Soup

My entire family was sick this weekend. My husband had a croaky voice and my son still has a runny nose... Even our dog got sick all over my parents' dining room floor. I'm the only one who isn't ailing in this family.



Mmmmm...

Because of this, we decided that tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches were a good plan for dinner last night. Considering I had already been to four stores looking for egg roll wrappers yesterday (and found exactly zero), I wasn't planning on leaving the house again. So I decided that I'd tackle homemade tomato soup. I make red sauce for pasta from scratch already and I figured it was probably going to be along the same lines, so I went for it. Here's the recipe I came up with:

Ingredients

• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 2 sprigs of fresh basil, stems removed and chopped finely (more if you like a strong basil flavor)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 28-ounce cans diced tomatoes (we got to use some of the tomato sauce we canned earlier this year!)
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced finely (you can always use more or less. I always use more garlic. We're garlic fanatics around here.)
• 1 C Plain Greek yogurt (if you can, let it sit out for a little while so it's not at a really cold temperature.)
• 3/4 C colby jack cheese
• 2 C low-sodium chicken broth (Aldi's grocery store has a GREAT and CHEAP low-sodium chicken broth.)

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in a dutch oven on medium heat. Add chopped onion and cook until clear, roughly four minutes. Add the garlic and cook another minute or two.
2. Add your chicken broth and tomatoes, keeping on medium heat. Bring to a simmer and add sugar, basil, and oregano. You can add some salt and pepper here if you'd like, too. I don't put a lot of salt in my food, so I usually add more at the end if it needs it.
3. Keep at a simmer for 10-15 minutes with lid on.
4. Remove from heat and let cool for 5-10 minutes. Add cheese and stir til melted. Let sit another five minutes and add Greek yogurt. (I've found that if you add yogurt to something when it's too hot, it curdles and while it still tastes fine, it's not as good as if you add room temperature yogurt to something that's had a chance to cool off.)
5. This is where I stopped. I found a few recipes that called for pureeing the soup so it's creamy like the conventional tomato soup. If you want to do that (I might try it out next time) you can use a blender or a food processor. My problem is that I wanted to eat it as soon as it was done!

One thing I want to point out with my recipes real quick. My cooking doesn't use a lot of salt. My dad suffered a heart attack a few years ago and my family pretty much stopped salting our food. That's why I never give a specific amount of salt required in my recipes. I understand that something that tastes salty to me might be lacking salt flavor to someone else. So salt accordingly!

So what's the deal with this soup? Well. It's low-sodium. It uses good, hearty ingredients. It tastes better than store-bought soup. For a cup of it, you will be spending 149 calories and using only 15% of the daily recommended amount of sodium. Campbell's canned tomato soup? 180 calories, 30% of your daily recommended sodium intake.

If anyone ever wonders (and also because I need to give credit where it's due) I get all of my nutritional values either straight out of my kitchen or on About.com's Calorie Counter. It's so helpful and very easy to understand.


The end result? A living room picnic for dinner.