Tomato Soup on Tuesday

I am so glad I ran my errands and went grocery shopping, yesterday.  Today is a cloudy day.  No rain, but no sunshine, either.  I guess we are building up to the rain that is supposed to come, tomorrow.  But, it is a relatively warm day, with a high of 68F, although the lack of sunshine makes it look colder!

I ate another slice of bread, last night.  The problem with eating dinner around 8:30 p.m. or 9:00 p.m. and not going to bed till 3:00 a.m., is, somewhere around 12:00 midnight, 3 hours or so after dinner, I get hungry again, and I don't always want to eat a salad then, or cucumber sticks with salsa!  I debated between eating a piece of fruit or a slice of bread, and, I'm afraid, the bread won!  LOL.  Then, around 2:30 a.m., I munched on a handful of raw cashews (good) and dried cranberries (not so good, because they were sweetened, but I ate only about a table spoon of them, so, I guess it was OK; at least, it was better for me than having a piece of chocolate). 

Today, with the weather being so gloomy, I didn't feel like having a salad for lunch.  Instead, I wanted something hot.  Soup.  But not just any type of soup, either.  I was craving tomato soup!  At one time, I loved the canned concentrated tomato soup, but, the last time I had some, I didn't much like it.  It gave me acid indigestion!  So, I've stopped buying the canned stuff.  But, tomato soup sounded very good, so, I decided to make some.  I'm afraid I've never made tomato soup from scratch, so I looked up a few recipes to get an idea of how to go about it.   But, I didn't really follow any one particular recipe. 

I knew I had some cut up tomato in the freezer (I buy fresh tomatoes, cut them up, and freeze them, to add to curries, etc.):

Frozen Tomato

That looked like it could have been two large tomatoes or maybe three medium tomatoes (no, I didn't write the amount on the freezer baggie).   I dumped it in the pan and added one can of low sodium chicken broth, partly because I didn't have any homemade chicken broth, and partly because, the can of broth needed to be used up soon due to expiration dates and so on (kept on hand as part of my emergency supplies, but, because it isn't something I normally use for every day cooking, it has been sitting in the cabinet a bit too long!).  If I didn't have any chicken broth on hand, I would have added water and either chicken bouillon powder or vegetable bouillon powder.  Then, I added a handful of frozen sliced onions and a handful of frozen sliced celery, a large grated carrot, a half teaspoon or so of the minced garlic (I probably could have added a whole teaspoon and it would have been alright), and two stalks of parsley from the garden (basil might have been good, too; I don't have any growing in my garden, but I have some dried basil; but I didn't think to add it at the time).  I debated adding some green chilies, but decided not to (but I should have; next time, maybe). 

Tomato Soup in the Making

I boiled everything for about 15 minutes, until everything was cooked and soft.  Then, since I don't have an immersion blender, I put the soup into my regular blender, in batches, and pureed it:

Tomato Soup (Pureed)

It wasn't exactly smooth and pureed, but that was fine with me.  I suppose I could have blended it a bit longer to get it smoother.  I added a little pepper and lemon juice, as it seemed to need a little something extra, and heated it through, again.  Then, had a bowl of it for my lunch:

Tomato Soup for Lunch

Maybe I should have added a sprig of parsley on top to make it look pretty!  Or stirred in a little cream (didn't have any!).  As I've said before, I'm not a food stylist, at all!  This is a two cup (16 fl. oz) bowl, if filled to the brim.  So, what I have there is about one cup of soup (I didn't measure).  It was good, but, it seemed to still be lacking something for my taste.  It needed more seasoning, but I wasn't quite sure what.

I waited about an hour and decided to have a second serving of soup, as I was still a bit hungry. 

One of our friends had given my daughter (who loves spicy food) a bag of ghost pepper tortilla chips:

Ghost Pepper Tortilla Chips

I took one of those chips and crumbled it over the second bowl of soup and, YES!  That was the flavor it was missing!  LOL!  I knew I should have added some chili to the soup!  NOW, I can say that it was the best tomato soup I've had, if not ever, then, in a very long time!  I have about two more servings of soup, left.  It will make a good midnight snack (with perhaps only half of a ghost pepper chip, just in case I get heartburn!) or, of course, for lunch, tomorrow.  I'm glad I was able to make this soup with ingredients I had on hand in the freezer, fridge, pantry, and garden!

I haven't had dinner, yet (it's just five o'clock, and I am going to have a cup of tea in a few minutes - it is brewing as I type), but, I am planning to cook the ground beef for dinner.  Hamburger patties, with either a salad or some cooked vegetables to accompany it, maybe some corn (no more and 1/3 cup) and broccoli.  Papaya for dessert, before that goes bad!

Today, I am grateful for:
- Another dry, mild day, even if it was cloudy and overcast
- A relaxed day
- Being able to make tomato soup with items I had on hand
- Being able to play around in the kitchen and experiment
- A good cup of tea!

Since I haven't yet done anything that was on my to do list for today, I am not going to make one for tomorrow!  Unless I manage to get a few items crossed off that list, tonight!

How was your day, today?  Have you made home-made tomato soup?  If so, do you have a favorite recipe?