Tomato Soup With Nothing In It

Hey, I'm still here I promise! I'm having one of those sorry-not-sorry moments for being so absent: on the one hand, I really like having a blog and updating my randomness for everyone. On the other hand....grad school is super hard and blogging is literally the LAST thing on my mind. Nevertheless here I am and I have been cooking! So much. Holy crap. 

I was browsing one of my favorite blogs (Budget Bytes) and I read a section where she talks about prepping meals ahead of time. Not only are there crazy cost savings in making food this way, but it really lessens the stress of those "I gotta run to work - on no I have no food - guess it's vending machine dinner" moments. Not that I've had one of those......shut up. 

So I went to Sprouts after work and bought the cheapest cuts of meat I could find, and supplemented with lots of veggies. So here's what I made:

I want to point out that the ONLY thing I did not purchase was the one red potato I roasted, and the seasonings/BBQ sauce. Everything else I bought for *drum roll* ................ $30. I think I stretched that pretty darn far. I haven't decided what will be frozen and what will go in my belly. I'm pretty pumped about it either way :) Let's break it all down! 

Teriyaki chicken with steamed broccoli & sweet potato. I made a teriyaki sauce that's off to the side.  

Mole-spiced pork tenderloin with braised red chard. Everything about this is so right.

Mole-spiced pork loin with roasted sweet potato! That's a thin pat of butter on top of the sweet potatoes.

Tomatillo roasted red potatoes with BBQ flank steak!

Beef short ribs with roasted sweet potato, and a red wine pan sauce

Tomatillo roasted potatoes with beef short ribs

Oh, I also made homemade tomato soup! I asked the hubs if there was ANY soup he could consider a meal, and he said Campbell's tomato soup. Then I said "how about if I just make it from scratch instead?" and he seemed to be OK with that :) Also I DID manage to make it taste remarkably close to Campbell's soup! Now to master their beef vegetable....

Anyways I scooped this up REAL quick with some of the sourdough I had. It was far too good.

Normally I include a recipe, so I'll share the recipe for the soup because that required a bit of work. Honestly, all the meats (except for the chicken) were seasoned, wrapped in foil, and put in the oven.  But the veggies took a lot of prep! Also I made dinner in the middle of everything (poached egg on toast) so I was poaching eggs while chopping Chard and grilling chicken. :D

I call this "tomato soup with nothing in it" because when I was little, I liked cream of tomato soup, but I had to differentiate it from things like tomato bisque or veggie soup. This is just tomato soup....but with nothing else in it! No chunks....

Tomato Soup:
2 large beefsteak tomatoes
4 roma tomatoes
4 large carrots
1 onion
2 tablespoons sugar
1 can beef stock
1/2 cup red wine
olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

-Heat your soup pot and pour a little oil in the bottom to heat with the pan.

-While the pan is warming up, roughly chop your onions & carrots.

-Add the two to the pot & saute until the onions start to soften. You can also add salt & pepper now

-Rough chop the tomatoes & add them to the pot once the onions are soft

-At this point I added the leftover can beef stock (from cooking the beef ribs), the wine and some extra water for liquid. This actually has enough flavor that you DON'T need to use stock. And I threw the wine in because it wasn't good for drinking. I mean....it was a big bottle for $8.99 - I didn't have high expectations

-Add sugar

-Now just let this cook. For a long time! I think I let this go for an hour and a half? I was multitasking and soup just gets better with time :).

-Once everything is looking broken down and cooked, let the soup cool down just a bit.

-Grab your stick blender and blend! (this is why we let the soup cool down). If you don't have a stick blender, blend in batches in a regular blender - just mind the splatter.

-Blend until it's smooth (I used the stick blender for like 5 minutes). Dose into your favorite container and eat/store!

I considered making this *cream* of tomato soup, but it's summer so a dairy-free soup felt appropriate. I bet this would be good with a dash of balsamic, or some jalapenos cooked down with it! Serve with bread or grilled cheese for dipping. This is tomato soup....you need the required accessories!

Alright! That was TONS of cooking in 3 hours. I am pooped so I'm going to go find some dessert and wrap up my night! Thanks for reading :)