This recipe is one I grew up eating. Creamy tomato soup with grilled cheese. It’s actually the first recipe I ever cooked solo! I was nine, and I decided to tackle dinner myself. I didn’t know how to use a blender or read recipes, so let’s just say the result was less than ideal. But it was food! And my mom kindly ate it anyways. Now, I find myself coming back to it often. It’s the only tomato soup I know, and it’s so comforting. It has a lovely kick from sherry, but you can also use white wine with a similar affect.
What’s a comfort food that reminds you of home? This is mine. The smell is the thing that brings me back. If you’re reading this in 2020, you’re living through a pandemic! Life is changing every day. It’s hard, and we can’t see friends or family like we used to. So if your refuge is cooking, I encourage you to make some feel-good food.
My recipe is adapted from a cookbook that I love–Molly Katzen’s Enchanted Broccoli Forest. It’s a gorgeous handwritten cookbook with illustrations by the author. It’s magical, and I remember just copying her drawings out of her cookbook as a kid.
Regardless of who you are and where you are right now, we can always use a little comfort food.
Check out the full recipe below.
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 medium yellow onions, diced
- 2 garlic cloves, sliced
- 2 tsp dried rosemary
- ½ tsp fennel seed
- 1½ tsp kosher salt
- fresh ground black pepper
- 6 tbsp dry sherry or white wine
- 71 oz stewed tomatoes or whole peeled tomatoes (two 28 oz cans and one 15 oz can)
- 6 oz cream cheese, cut into cubes
- In a large pot with a lid or dutch oven, add your butter over medium high heat. Add the onion and garlic, sauteeing until the onions are soft and beginning to lightly brown at the edges.
- Meanwhile, crush the fennel and rosemary lightly. You can pulse them in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Or place them in a sealed plastic bag and hit them on the counter with a heavy frying pan.
- Add the fennel, rosemary, salt, and a few grinds of black pepper to the onions. Stir, and cook for one minute so the spices open up. Add the sherry. Then add all the tomatoes. Bring to a boil, then cover and lower the heat to a simmer. Cook covered for 30 minutes.
- Remove the lid and puree the soup either with an immersion blender or in a blender. If using a blender, please do it in batches, keeping the vent open with a dish towel covering the vent so it doesn't splatter. Taste the pureed soup for salt, adding more if needed.
- Place the soup back over low heat, and add the cream cheese, whisking it into the soup until it's completely incorporated and no large pieces remain. Remove from heat and serve.
