Tomato Basil Soup with Grilled Cheese Croutons

ingredients:

3 cans of diced garlic tomatoes
4cloves of garlic chopped (finely)
1/2 cup of chopped onions
2 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup half and half
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup of olive oil
2 tbsp of basil (dried or fresh)

directions:

In large pot on medium to high heat, pour in the olive oil and saute onion until translucent. Helpful Hint: if you freeze your onions before hand or chew a piece of gum while dealing with the onion your eyes won't water up and burn so much.

Add the garlic, heat with the onion for about four minutes. I actually just found out that if you crush the garlic clove with the side of the knife it makes it much easier to dice. (Thanks to my lovely boyfriend!)

Then, add the cans tomatoes, juice and all; cover for about 15 minutes, stirring every few minutes.

Take the lid off the pot, add the chicken broth and half & half and bring the pot to a slight simmer. 

The mixture should start to thicken as time passes and it starts to reduce. It takes about 10 minutes. You want your soup to be just a little bit on the thick side. If your soup is still thinner than you would prefer let it simmer a bit longer while occasionally stirring. 

When its just right, add the basil and season to taste with salt and pepper (I like to save just a little bit of the basil to garnish the dish). Lower your heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes more.

Now for the blender! I had a incident while cooking this today, I made the mistake of putting just a little too much of the soup in the blender at once and it ended up spilling onto my hand and making a mess on the counter. Which I was made fun of for immediately following the incident for being a baby about it. I recommend using a ladel instead of pouring it straight out of the pot, hopefully you will be able to avoid my messy incident!

You will most likely have to do it in batches.It took me about 2 to get it done.

Then pour it back into the pot to heat it back up a bit, you can also make some adjustments to pepper, salt, basil, etc. at this point. 

Somewhere during this I found the time to make two grilled cheese sandwiches (EXTRA crispy). Then cut them into crouton sized bits.

Then pour yourself a bowl! I like to put a small pile of shredded cheddar cheese in the middle of the bowl. Garnished with a little bit of basil and of course your grilled cheese croutons.

Enjoy! I know we definitely did!

P.S.  this recipe is awesome as leftovers too! It makes for a fantastic lunch the next few days! Also I'll put up a picture when I make some of my leftovers in a few days!