roasted tomato soup & grilled cheese croutons

I am so anxious for Thanksgiving because you know what Thanksgiving means? Yes, good food and entertaining family time. But it also means in less than a month I will be listening to Christmas music and searching for the perfect Christmas tree. Pure happiness. In the mean time, I'm making soup and grilled cheese while dreaming about my grandma's turkey, marshmallow covered sweet potatoes, dumplings and biscuit stuffing.

The tomato soup is so fresh and flavorful and I'm not sure it gets much healthier than this, at least not on this blog! I used my George Foreman to grill the grilled cheese and made sure to get it extra crispy so it wouldn't get too soggy in the tomato soup. And if you like a little heat, I loved the spicy kick from the colby/pepper jack cheese slices in the grilled cheese. I think a pimento cheese grilled cheese would go great with this soup too. But the best thing about a grilled cheese is that you can use any cheese you'd like! 

for the tomato soup:

recipe adapted from Closet Cooking 

2 pounds of tomatoes, diced

1 red pepper, diced and seeded

1 onion, diced

1 carrot, diced 

4 gloves of garlic, unpeeled

olive oil

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp paprika

1 tsp oregano

2 c. chicken stock

1/4 c. heavy cream, optional 

handful of basil, chopped

Preheat the oven to 375°F. 

Place the tomatoes, red pepper, carrot, onion and garlic on a baking pan and drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for 30 minutes. Place everything but the cream into a sauce pan and simmer for 15 minutes. Puree with a hand blender or regular blender to desired consistency and mix in the cream and basil. 

for the grilled cheese croutons:

 (makes one)

2 slices of sourdough bread

2 slices of cheese (I used colby jack & pepper jack slices)

1 tbsp butter

Butter one side of each slice of bread. Place one slice of the bread in the pan/grill, buttered side down, and top with cheese and the remaining piece of bread, buttered side up. Cook until golden brown and crispy, about 4 minutes on each side. Flip and cook the other side for about 4 minutes. Cut the edges from the grilled cheese and cut into squares.