Creamy Tomato and Basil Soup

Recipes

Happy Monday! For Steve and I, it is HONEYMOON WEEK! How is that even possible!? We are SO excited about it, although frantically running around trying to get things ready. I have a fantastic lineup of guest posts for you coming in the month of December, but today I am giving you a little teaser. 

By the way, if anyone has any recommendations for places to go (or eat) in Sydney or Cairns (Port Douglas), please leave me a comment!

I have already told you that I LOVE Sarah. When we had our week at Zap fitness, I realized just how similar we are, and I have some big news….well, its her big news, but she and her husband Michael are MOVING TO LEXINGTON!!!! Michael is going to be working with Steve as the Assistant Cross Country and Track Coach (although I know Steve, and it won’t be assistant as you think, almost every decision will be made between them, equal partners.)

Anyway, I want you to get to know Sarah a little better, as you are going to be seeing a whoooolllleeee lot more of her, and we have lots of fun things planned for the future. She loves to cook as much as I do, and I thought it would be nice to share one of her recipes today. We are actually going to Tallahassee in January-February with the Zap Fitness group, and I am VERY excited to be staying in the warm for a month. There will be lots of cooking going down there I am sure!

Hope you enjoy, I can’t wait to try this one out! Make sure you check out the rest of the recipes in the linkup, especially my cohost Confessions of a Mother Runner!

Here’s Sarah!

I don’t care if I sound 80 years old, I love my crock pot.

I also love cats and knitting and bingo on Wednesdays, so I think I should just own it at this point. I’m an old soul.

The reason I love the crock pot is because never in the history of humanity have so many people been able to cook so well by doing so little.

Crock pots are E.A.S.Y. Throw a few handfuls of ingredients into a pot at noon and pull it out at six with a smile on your face. In fact, since you have so much free time, don an apron, throw some flour on your face and tell your man to do the dishes since you’ve been slaving all day in the kitchen. He doesn’t need to know.

This Creamy Tomato Basil Soup can be our little secret.

Tomato and Basil Soup

Creamy Tomato Basil Soup

Instructions

2 cans (28oz each) diced tomatoes

1 small onion

2 cloves garlic

a pinch of sugar

2 tsp salt

1tsp pepper

2 cups chicken (vegetable) broth

2 cups heavy cream (let’s use half and half for a more “runner-friendly” version)

1/4 cup fresh Basil cut very finely

1/8 cup fresh Oregano cut very finely

Instructions

6 hours before dinner, whip out the crock pot and set it on low.

Mince up the garlic and onions and throw in the bottom of the pot.

Put the basil, oregano, salt and pepper and sugar in the pot on top of the onions and garlic.

Open both cans of tomatoes and add those, followed by the 2 cups of chicken broth.

Give everything a good stir and let it cook for 6 hours on low or 4 hours on high.

A few minutes before dinner time turn off the crock pot and use an emersion blender or a regular blender to smooth out the soup into a perfect, thick consistency, placing it in a large stove-top pot on very low heat to keep it warm.

Take a cup or two of the hot soup and place in a separate bowl.

Very slowly, whisk the 2 cups of half and half into the smaller bowl of soup (this is called tempering and prevents the cream from curdling!).

Slowly whisk the creamy soup into the larger pot and serve warm with croutons or grilled cheese!

 

This recipe is great for busy days. We all have those sometimes, though most days I’m super put together and able to whip out a 5-Star dinner.

Fine, very rarely.

Okay, never.

Enjoy!

 

Crockpot? Love it, or always forget about it? Any recommendations for Sydney, Cairns or Perth?

PS. If you have trouble pacing yourself, make sure you check out this article on Runners Connect. Sarah explains it a little better than I was able to in my article about pacing.

dinner, lunch, soup

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29 Comments.

  • carla birnberg
    November 30, 2015 5:13 am

    oooh my girl hates soup. we traveled for thanksgiving and along the way she discovered her LOVE OF THE TOMATO AND BASIL SOUP!!

    Now it’s on me not to screw this up when I make it 🙂

  • I love my crockpot! I recently made bone broth in it and I’m in a very soup-y mood lately. Looks delicious!

  • Tina, have so much fun! Sarah, who doesn’t love tomato and basil together? I seriously need to start using my crockpot.

    • I’ve been using mine for about 2 years now and have never made a dish I didn’t love, so easy!

  • I have been slurping soup non-stop for a few weeks and I love it!! This is a perfect addition to what I already have in the fridge. SO excited for you and Steve to get out of town…and the country…on an amazing honeymoon. Enjoy every moment…and post to Insta often 🙂 xoxoxo

  • Soren Brockdorf
    November 30, 2015 7:06 am

    Are you doing the Tallahassee Marathon when you are in Tally?

  • I love tomato soup though sadly my stomach does not! This looks delicious though and perfect for the chilly winter days to come!

  • We’re finally getting soup weather here in the California desert! Hurray! This looks lovely (though we’d need to sub veggie broth to make it meatless 🙂 ).

  • Love my crock pot too and I am all over soups right now. Thanks for sharing your recipe Sarah and for helping out Tina and I with the link up. Have a great time Tina!!

  • It is snowing here today and we have windows being installed so I plan on hiding out all snuggled up but I’m thinking soup is in order, I may have to grab the couple things I need when picking up the girls to make this one tonight!
    Oh it is soup season here! I made a couple HUGE pots of chicken wild rice and mushroom wild rice while up at my parents with friends this weekend (there were 18 of us) and it was great except I ran out of wild rice so I used black rice and we ended up with one bath of a purple soup. It was delicious and the kids thought it was fun.

  • Runningwithallergies
    November 30, 2015 12:50 pm

    I love that you will be having Sarah nearby! 🙂 This is fantastic news. Have a delightful honeymoon – you have earned every second of it.

  • Have so much fun on your honeymoon, Tina! Sarah – this recipe looks great! I love my crockpot, especially for a healthy soup or stew on a cold winter night!

    • I will be trying out a new stew later this week, one of the many reasons to love winter!

  • Christine @ Love, Life, Surf
    November 30, 2015 1:29 pm

    I’m all about simple and easy recipes and I love this! And I love tomato soup too! So exciting that Sarah is moving to Lexington and excited for YOU – have so much fun on your honeymoon Tina!!

  • YES to all the warm and comforting soups this winter…perfect with a delicious grilled cheese and hot sauce! Thanks for sharing friend and thanks again for you sweet text message on Thanksgiving! XOXO

  • This is fantastic! Two of my favorite things: tomato soup and the crock pot – ha! Perfect! Thanks so much for sharing this recipe, Tina!

  • I love my crockpot, too, so we can sound old together :). Tomato Basil soup is my favorite!

  • I am a huge Tomato Basil soup fan!! So YUM!! Love that it is so easy and I need to use my crockpot more often! 🙂
    Have an amazing honeymoon Tina!! So excited for you both! xx

  • fitlivingblog
    December 1, 2015 7:12 am

    Yum! Soup is my absolute favorite. Unfortunately, it’s not my husbands… boooo. This tomato soup looks so yummy and easy to make. Thanks, Sarah!

  • Sounds delicious! I love tomato soup!

  • Sarah sounds like my soul sister! I love knitting, reading, jigsaw puzzles and I really want to get a cat but fear that will just seal the deal. Thanks for making me feel accompanied in my old ageism even though I’m “only” 37! 🙂

    • Haha, I should have also mentioned that I have a sassy, butter-ball of a cat. It definitely sealed the deal!

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