Creamy Tomato Basil Soup

This recipe comes from the kitchen of Shellee Draper. Her son is in my cub scout den. One week we were talking about our favorite foods and this boy said "My moms Tomato Basil Soup". Now let me tell you... if a 10 year old boy puts his moms soup over pizza you know it is going to be good. Shellee says:


When we have it at home, I make ham and cheese sandwiches and we dip them in as we eat it.  Just so you know!  

Creamy Tomato Basil Soup

2 cups onions chopped

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 dried basil

3/4 c butter divided

2 Tablespoons olive oil

2 cans (1 pound 15 ounches each) Italian tomatoes

4 Tablespoons tomato paste

4 c chicken broth

1-4 c flour

1 c heavy cream

1 tsp sugar

salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, saute onion, thyme, basil in 1/2 c butter and olive oil until onion wilts.  Add tomatoes and paste, simmer for 10 minutes.  In a separate bowl, mix 5 Tablespoons broth to flour until smooth.  Stir flour mixture into soup.  Add remaining broth and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring frequently.  Put soup through blender, food processor or hand blender.  Soup can be prepared ahead of time up to this point.  just before serving, add sugar, cream and 1/4 c butter, salt and pepper to taste.  

SO, I basically follow the recipe on this, but here are a couple of hints:  Since you do have to blend the soup at the end, I chop up my onions very carelessly.  :)  When you do blend, do it in small batches.  Don't fill up your blender more than half way, unless you enjoy a red ceiling.  Sometimes I will let it cool a bit before I blend it.  Just be careful doing that.  The only other thing is that sometimes if I'm feeling like NOT dying an early death, I will half the butter and use half and half.  Most of the time I make it full throttle though!  It's so yummy!  Enjoy!