Tomato Basil Soup

Initially I found a recipe for bread and tomato soup on epicurious.com which sounded very good. However, if I followed the recipe it would have been very bland- basically just canned tomatoes, broth and mushy bread. Not so good after all. So first I decided to remove the bread and use as croutons (as recommended in a comment to the original recipe on epicurous.com) instead of letting it dissolve in the soup. The soup still needed more, so I added an additional can of tomatoes (instead of the one can called for in the original recipe). Lastly, I went out on a limb and added the cream cheese. This could have gone one of two ways… but to my surprise (and delight) it was exactly what was missing! The soup is great and I am proud of myself for experimenting and straying from a recipe!

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
4 cups day-old white bread, torn into small pieces
2 (28-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes
4 cups chicken stock
8 basil leaves, chopped into small pieces
¼ cup chive and onion cream cheese
Pepper to taste
Salt to taste

Directions

Heat the oil in a large, deep sauce pan over low heat. Sautee garlic 1-2 minutes. Add the bread, stirring until oil is absorbed and bread it lightly toasted. Remove bread and transfer to bowl.

Add tomatoes, chicken stock, basil, salt and pepper.

Bring to a boil, than reduce heat. Simmer about 20 minutes. Remove from heat. Add cream cheese. Puree with immersion hand blender. Serve with bread cubes and grated parmesan cheese.