Cookbook Chronicles: Cheesy Tomato Soup

Cookbook Chronicles is an on-going series at The Bookery. Over the course of the next year, we'll delve into The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond’s, cookbook, Super Easy! trying one recipe per month.

The recipe: Cheesy Tomato Soup

The cookbook: Super Easy! by Ree Drummond

The details: It’s now officially fall (at least meteorologically speaking—here in the South, we’re sure to have some humid days into October), so it seems fitting to start making soups, chilis and stews. One of my favorite easy fall meals is either chili and grilled cheese or tomato soup and grilled cheese. (Yes, I really like grilled cheese.)

So when I was paging through Super Easy! looking for the next recipe to make for Cookbook Chronicles, the soup section seemed perfect. I’m always looking for an easy tomato soup recipe, so this one, which features cheese IN THE SOUP, seemed like a great one to try.

The adjustments: In the cookbook, Ree takes baguette slices and makes tiny, cheesy soup toppers. I’m sure it’s delicious, but I knew that if I was having tomato soup, I wanted a real, true, full-size grilled cheese sandwich to go with it. So I skipped the toppers, but I did add the cheese to the soup as directed.

The recipe also calls for heavy cream, but for whatever reason, the small market where I had stopped to get ingredients didn’t have cream. Like, at all. NO CREAM. So I grabbed some half and half, which I’m sure lessened the calories a bit, but still made for a hearty soup—but maybe slightly less creamy.

The recipe also called for stewed tomatoes, but that small market also had no stewed tomatoes. I settled for petite diced tomatoes and took my immersion blender to the soup before eating, just to break things up a bit more.

The moral of this story? Don’t shop at tiny markets for recipes. If you need specialty (or things that might be considered specialty at tiny markets) head to the bigger store!

The verdict: So, I wanted to love this soup … but truth be told, I didn’t. I didn’t hate it, but I think I prefer Ree’s sherried tomato soup better. I followed the recipe exactly and added sugar to help with the tomatoes’ acidity as directed, but the soup tasted too sweet to me. It also. . . didn’t feel all that cheesy, which may have been my fault for not making the cheesy toppers. While it was a great meal for an almost-fall evening, I probably won’t be making this one on repeat.

Up next: Brownie S'mores Bars

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