Making in the Kitchen: Chili-Basil Tomato Soup

Before it gets into the heat of summer, I thought I should take this chance to get some soups out of my system.  I recently tried this new recipe from Taste Of Home magazine and decided to make it again for lunch today.  It’s incredibly simple and really takes your plain tomato soup somewhere a little more special.

Here is what you’ll need:

• 1 big can (26oz.) condensed tomato soup (oops! I accidentally used the small can!)
• 3 cups 2% milk (I used skim and it tasted fine…2% would make it creamier though)
• 1 can (12 oz.) evaporated milk
• 1 can (10 oz.) diced tomatoes and green chilies, undrained
• 1 T. minced fresh basil or 1 tsp. dried basil
• ½ tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. pepper

 The first time I made this, my daughters complained about the “chunks”. They were referring to the diced tomatoes. What is it with kids and texture in their food? So this time I thought I’d try and fool my daughters by smooshing them with this potato masher (smooshing the tomatoes, not my girls).

Put every ingredient in the list in a pot and heat on your stove. I wouldn’t go above medium heat, because milk can burn easily.  Please take notice of my handy dandy mini food scraper. I love it and am finding new uses for it every day. But it works great scraping the insides of cans like this.  Again….I screwed up and used the small can of tomato soup instead of the big one. Don’t make that mistake like I did! (Although I have to say…it still turned out tasty.)

Let it get nice and hot and you’ve got yourself lunch!  While a nice melty grilled cheese sandwich would be delicious with this, I felt like baking. So I made a cheesy beer bread to go with.  I’ll show you how to make it next time. Enjoy!