Amazing Tomato Soup

I love soup for lunch when the weather gets cooler. When we lived in Boston, I improvised a tomato soup very loosely based on a recipe from Food & Wine. This is a quick soup and is ready in less than an hour from start to finish. It makes four to five servings as written.

Here’s a tip—you don’t need to peel your garlic cloves before you put them through your press. In fact if you don’t peel them, your press will be a lot easier to clean up.

Finally, I almost never add salt and pepper while cooking something. I prefer to add them at the table.

Ingredients:

1 T butter
1 T olive oil
1 small or ½ medium white onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, put through a press
2 t smoked paprika (it makes a difference to the taste so get smoked paprika)
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes (I prefer fire roasted tomatoes)
3 T tomato paste
1 ½ C water
1/3 C light cream
1 sprig of thyme or about ½ t dried thyme
1 bay leaf

Directions:

• Melt the butter and oil together in a pan large enough to hold all the ingredients.
• Add the finely diced onion and garlic to the pan and sauté until tender and translucent, about five minutes.
• Add the paprika and stir well.
• Add the tomatoes with their juice, the tomato paste, the water, the thyme and bay leaf.
• Stir well and simmer for about 15 to 30 minutes.
• Remove from heat and stir in the cream.