Grandma's Homemade Tomato Soup (with a slight variation)
The variation from Grandma's recipe is the use of the V8 juice and the blender. Grandma liked her tomato soup with a few chunky tomatoes and quite frankly she did not have an immersion blender, but she did use her potato masher to mash the tomatoes. Grandma also added diced celery but I like to use the V8 in place of the celery. Many times I would watch Grandma use her hands to squish the fresh garden tomatoes into the soup pot if she had fresh tomatoes from her garden. I much prefer the canned diced variety for convenience but I have used fresh. They are equally delish. Grandma also used about 1/4 cup of sugar, but I cut the sugar to a little over a tablespoon a long time ago. :)
- 4 cups tomatoes (fresh, canned, whole or diced) I use diced
- 3 tbsp1 butter
- 2 cups V8 Juice (Or you can use canned tomato juice)
- 1/2 cup Onion (diced)
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp basil (can use chopped fresh basil if desired)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1/4 tsp red pepper or red pepper flakes
- 2 tbsp flour
- 1 1/2 tbsp sugar
- 1 cup cream (or half & half)
In heavy dutch oven, heat butter until melted
Add the onions and spices and stir until the onions are translucent
Stir in the flour cooking over medium to low heat until the flour is cooked, about 3-4 minutes. (You don't want the taste of raw flour in your soup.)
Add the V8 juice and tomatoes and cook stirring occasionally for about 3 minutes
Turn off heat. Using a hand blender, blend the soup until the tomatoes are all liquid
Add the cream and stir over medium heat until well blended and hot.
Before serving, Top with croutons, tortilla strips or chopped fresh basil