What Am I? Not Chopped Liver

This morning Karen at Baking In A Tornado was nice enough to inform me that today was National Homemade Soup Day. Just like that I had dinner inspiration.

But what type of soup? Hubby Tony had served Costco white bean chicken chili for Sunday's dinner, and there were enough leftovers that we ate the same thing last night. I looked through the refrigerator to see what needed to be used up. There were mainly leftovers from our Super Bowl viewing party-a small ramekin of mushroom pâté (a combination of mushrooms, onions, walnuts, and spices cooked and puréed in a food processor), several pieces of thin-sliced whole grain bread, part of a lemon cake, some homemade blueberry sauce, and a container of whipped topping. I thought that tomato soup would round out the meal well.

Pâté, anyone?

Of course tomatoes aren't in season. Aldi had Romas on sale this week, so while I was out running errands I swung by there for a couple of pounds. Back at home I roasted the tomatoes in the oven with onion and garlic, then dumped them in a pot with some homemade stock and dried basil and simmered everything until the tomatoes were falling apart. The next step was to whiz the soup with an immersion blender and put it back on low heat. I didn't have any cream, but some reconstituted milk powder made an acceptable substitute and was more diet friendly.

Right before dinner I tossed the bread in the oven to crisp up, then poured big bowls of soup and transferred everything to the table. As I suspected, the pâté was an excellent complement to the soup. After dinner, I heated up the blueberry sauce, poured it over the cake, then added dollops of whipped topping. Dessert was as tasty as it was on Sunday.

We only used half the soup, so the rest will be dinner tomorrow. Just one problem...now there's nothing to go with it. It's supposed to snow overnight, so after the dishes were cleaned up I quickly ran to the grocery store to get some good cheese to make grilled cheese sandwiches.

Five years ago today: Evaluator Times Two