Tomato Soup

Soup. Ah, soup. The wonderful food of winter months!

I have been working on my recipe for almost-dairy-free "cream" of tomato soup. I think we are getting somewhere, so here is version 1.0 for your enjoyment. Of course, feel free to use milk if you aren't doing the dairy-free thing at your place. In fact, if you eat dairy- consider adding 8 oz cream cheese, cubed, just before serving. Mmm.

You'll notice that I do use butter. That small amount doesn't affect our kids. I will most likely continue tweaking the recipe, watch for possible updates.

Tomato Soup
12 generous servings (We all ate at least a bowl for lunch and there were still 2 servings left.)

1/4 cup butter
1 cup onions
1 TBS garlic, minced
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup flour
1 quart rice milk (or almond, or soy)
1 1/2 quart tomato sauce (1/2 of a #10 can, Costco $2.75)
1/2 tsp salt
dash pepper
2 cups water
1 tsp chicken base (or sub. 2 cup chicken broth for water)

In a dutch oven, saute onions in butter over medium heat. After 2 min., add garlic and red pepper flakes. Once the garlic becomes fragrant, stir in the 1/4 cup flour. Stir quickly until the mixutre appears coated with the butter/flour combination. Slowly add 2 cups of the milk, stirring vigorously the entire time. Once the milk is well combined, remove from heat and allow to cool for approx. 5 min. Transfer mixture to blender and blend until smooth. (If you have an immersion blender, you can skip this step and blend in the pot.) Return to pot and add the tomato sauce, S & P, water and chicken base. Heat through and serve.