Since I know you all come to this site in search of great recipes, I have one for you…
As I've only mentioned eight million times here, I'm a big fan of the Classic Creamy Tomato Soup that the Souplantation chain serves during my birthday month of March and occasionally for one other week per year. This past March, it seemed a little less spectacular than the previous March and I decided the time had come for me to not be dependent on them for decent tomato soup. I'd already tried all the canned and boxed soups one finds in any market and found them lacking so I decided to find a recipe and make my own.
I've found one I like almost as much as the Souplantation version. I'm still experimenting with the precise spice components but it's already good enough that I don't care if Souplantation ever has theirs again. It's also pretty easy and, of course, I can make it any time I like. You can make it any time you like too if you can get your mitts on cans of San Marzano Peeled Tomatoes.
This is not hard to do. You can order them from Amazon. You can find them in lots of supermarkets and at least in my neck o' the woods, they have them at some Target stores. Of note: I found my first cans in a gourmet-type shop where they were $7.50 a can. Target sells the exact same thing for $3.69.
I've been using the Cento brand but I have no reason to believe theirs are any better than any other. If your store only has Crushed Tomatoes, I believe they'd work just as well since the whole thing's going through a blender before it reaches your mouth.
To make two or three servings, you need one can of those, half a yellow onion, a tablespoon or two of butter and whatever spices you like. I've also been experimenting with tossing in two crushed cloves of fresh garlic. Oh — and it might be nice to have a stove, a pot to cook all this stuff in and the aforementioned blender. A food processor would also work.
Chop the onion up a bit and toss it in the pot. Throw in the garlic if you like. Sauté them if you like in the butter or a little olive oil but I've tried it without sautéing and it doesn't seem to make much difference. Toss in whatever butter you didn't use for sautéing if you sautéd. Empty in the 28 ounce can of tomatoes and break them up a little with the wooden (not metal) spoon you'll be using to stir your soup occasionally throughout the cooking process. Add a little water to the can, swish it around to get all the remaining tomato remnants off the inside, then dump that water into the pot.
Add some salt and then turn on your burner and adjust until you have this mixture simmering. Let it do that for 45 minutes, then run it through your blender. Blend it a lot if you want it silky smooth. Blend it a little if you want it a bit chunky.
The last step is to play around with additives. You'll probably need more salt and I always add onion powder because I somehow have a big, big jar of it and that's a fine reason to add anything to whatever you're making.
The online recipes from which I stole the components of mine all demanded Cayenne Pepper and sometimes Red Pepper Flakes but I don't like spicy anything. I get the feeling there is no one who posts recipes online who is humanly capable of not adding Cayenne Pepper to every preparation including French Vanilla Ice Cream and baby food. I guess they must all have big, big jars of it to use up.
I've also tried adding — not all to the same batch — a dash of sugar, a little bit of cream, a half-cup of chicken stock and when I don't add fresh garlic, some garlic powder. My experiments continue but so far, I like it best with just the salt and some onion powder.
Once it's done, let it rest a while before consuming. Last time I did this, I ate half of it an hour later. I then refrigerated the rest and then microwaved it back to life twenty hours later. It was a little better the next day as some prepared foods tend to be.
When I first swooned for the soup at Souplantation, I asked them to show me the recipe, foolishly thinking I could make it at home. They'll show it to you if you ask but you can't copy it and you can't remember it because it has around thirty ingredients in it, some of which have long, chemical-sounding names like Something Benozate and Something Else Mononitrate. I really like that this has less than a half-dozen components…and really all it is is tomatoes with a few flavor add-ons. If you can get some cheese 'n' garlic croutons in it, that's a great combination.