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The perfect soup to go with grilled-cheese sandwiches.
Print Recipe
Chunky Tomato Soup
Instructions
Heat olive oil in a large saucepan or Dutch oven over medium-high heat.
Sauté onion and bell pepper until onion started to become translucent.
Add garlic and sauté for another minute.
Added diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, seasoning packets, and water. Bring to a boil, then reduced to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes.
Remove from heat. With a ladle or large spoon, scoop some of the vegetable solids and broth into a blender. Purée to desired smoothness. (How much of the solids you purée and for how long depends on how smooth or chunky you'd like the finished soup.)
Returned the purée to the soup pot. Add half and half. Return to burner on medium heat until mixture begins to return to a simmer.
Remove from heat. Stir in basil and serve immediately.
We met for lunch at Café Red Onion. She ordered the spinach and goat cheese enchiladas. I ate the usual pupusas revueltas—fat cornmeal pancakes stuffed with shredded pork and other good things.
We talked about writing. Since that topic encompasses everything else that we both live and breathe, the conversation covered a lot of ground.
 She talked about inspiration and the nocturnal activities of her particular muse. There was a voice that came to her one night to dictate notes for years’ worth of writing projects. I speculated about the creative unconscious, the unknown workings of the mute machinery of our brains that collects, organizes, catalogs, and stores images, sounds, smells, emotions, and abstract ideas and then assembles them into dreams, long-term memories, and all the wonders of fantasy. I wondered why she was so eager to give the credit for her brilliance to something outside herself …[MORE]
For Connie
Frittata is the perfect kitchen-sink dish for using up leftovers, for impressing your brunch guests without a ton of work, or for reheating out of the freezer for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I suggest accompanying it with some spring greens or arugula that you’ve dressed lightly with vinaigrette.
Ingredients
- 15 eggs (see below for notes on scaling)
- 1½ c half and half, whole milk, or cream
- ½ t salt
- ¼ t dried chervil
- ¼ t dried basil
- Generous grind of black pepper
- Generous grind of fresh nutmeg (or a large pinch if you’re using pre-ground nutmeg)
- 3–5 cups of various filling ingredients of your choice (see below)
- 3 T chopped fresh parsley, cilantro, and/or basil
- ¼ c grated Parmesan (or Romano or Asiago cheese)
…[MORE]
Thirty-one days of talking about fitness and eating better are all well and good, but we must not neglect life’s simple pleasures. I have a busy day scheduled—a meeting with my business partner, two meetings with clients, and a big project that’s ready for finishing touches before it goes to the printer. But in the interest of setting a joyful tone for the day, I reserved half an hour this morning to get a batch of scones into the oven.
With the encouragement of my friend and coach Gika Rector, I’ve been giving some thought lately to cooking as an art form. I’m overdue for grocery-shopping, so today’s performance started from the concept “What’s hiding in the pantry?†A can of yams and the last bit of a bag of crystallized ginger became my inspiration. (I also found some vacuum-packed salmon, but my artistic vision wasn’t bold enough for fish scones—yet.)
(Start with the basic scone recipe and instructions.) …[MORE]
The July Project: Day 27
We’re down to the last five days of the month. I woke up this morning thinking how easy it is to run out of steam right at the end of a project like this, and wondering what extra effort I might need to put forth to get the rest of the way to the goal, which was to give time and attention to this blog every day in July.
I was also thinking about how I’ve struggled for the last couple of months to get rid of the weight I gained …[MORE]
The July Project: Day 17
There’s a flaw in the communication between the stomach and the brain—the gap between full and not hungry. We eat until we’re full, but we still feel the desire to eat. We eat some more, and later, we feel stuffed, overfed. We gain weight.
Maybe it’s not a flaw, so much as a legacy of our evolution. Before proto-humans developed the cognitive ability to plan and predict their next meal, when the food supply was uncertain and had to be chased down with spears and rocks, stockpiling calories was probably a good survival mechanism. Then some of them figured out agriculture, then permanent settlements, then cities, and the next thing you know …[MORE]
The July Project: Day 13
I’m an emotional eater. I’ve learned this about myself over and over again, but sometimes the realization doesn’t set in until 10 or 15 minutes after the food goes down. Here’s the process:
- Experience mildly negative emotion—frustration, boredom, anxiety, irritation.
- Seek comfort in food.
- Later, realize that I ate for the wrong reason.
- Feel disappointed in myself.
- Repeat process starting at step 2, ad infinitum.
I’m trying to train myself to anticipate step 3 before I act on step 2 …[MORE]
The July Project: Day 12
Try this exercise: Drop in on a Chinese buffet at the height of the lunch rush. Take a quick visual survey of the first 10 adults you see. Notice how many of them are overweight. Count the number who could probably be described as morbidly obese.
Now turn around, walk out, and go eat somewhere else.
I understand the arguments in favor of buffet dining: you don’t have to limit yourself to a single menu choice, it’s easy to feed yourself quickly, there are plenty of things that the kids like, and so on. I’m also not bashing Chinese cuisine in general …[MORE]
The July Project: Day 10
I ate a wonderful meal tonight. On the advice of friends, my dinner date and I went to check out Divino, an Italian restaurant that’s somewhat more pricy than my typical dining choices.
We started off with a bottle of Malbec and an antipasto classico. The platter contained a tiny portion of each of eight or nine savory treats—fresh mozzarella, chunks of aged Parmiggiano, several kinds of preserved meat, little slices of grilled polenta, quarters of baby artichokes, and pickled onions. It was enough food for each of us to enjoy a taste of everything, but not much more than a taste …[MORE]
The July Project: Day 7
Nearly a week, and all I’ve managed to talk about so far is exercise. Diet is a more difficult subject to approach. Food means a lot more than sustenance, more than just the source of energy to keep the body running. Food is laden with emotional context.
We’ll come back to that context another day. Today, I’ll ease into the topic with one of the simplest weight-loss tips I can offer.
Do you eat in restaurants? I love to dine out, but restaurant portions are out of control. Restaurants seem to be engaged in a competition to see who can pile the most food on a plate. I’ve never worked in restaurant management, but I can only suppose that an economy of scale is at work here …[MORE]
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