What's For Dinner? Tomato-Basil Soup

I love sharing a good, easy weeknight dinner recipe, and last night I made a great one. I love Tomato-Basil soup, but I've never ventured to make it myself. I saw this recipe in Cooking Light and knew I had to try it. Quick aside, I believe I've mentioned this before, but I love Cooking Light magazine! The recipes in it aren't diet recipes where they completely leave out all the good stuff, they simply offer lighter ways to cook delicious meals. I highly recommend them.

So below and linked you'll find the recipe I followed for last night's Tomato-Basil soup. Everything it called for was easily found at my grocery store, though I imagine the canned fire-roasted tomatoes might be difficult to find in a small-town grocer. Next time, I will likely raid my mother-in-law's garden for basil as the package I bought at the store was barely enough for the full 3/4 cup of chopped basil used in the recipe. My whole family loved both the soup and the asiago cheese bread that we enjoyed as both a side and as croutons in the soup. This is an great weeknight recipe as it only took about 30-40 minutes for the whole thing. It was touted in the magazine's 20-Minute Cooking section, but let's face it, most of those claims are only true if you have a prep chef or actually buy things like pre-chopped onion--and who does that? Not me. Still, there was minimal prep involved, but things did get a little hectic as I was trying to stay on top of the soup without burning the bread in the forget-about-it-for-more-than-a-minute-and-you-burn-it broiler (and I did).

Photo and recipe copyright Cooking Light magazine.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups prechopped onion
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 3/4 cup chopped fresh basil
• 1 (28-ounce) can fire-roasted diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, cut into cubes
• 2 cups 1% low-fat milk
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 12 (1/2-inch-thick) slices French bread
• Cooking spray
• 1 garlic clove, halved
• 1 ounce shredded Asiago cheese

Preparation

1. Preheat broiler to high.
2. Heat olive oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté 3 minutes. Stir in garlic; cook for 1 minute. Add basil and tomatoes; bring to a boil. Stir in cheese until melted. Place mixture in blender, and blend until smooth. Return to pan; stir in milk, salt, and pepper. Return to medium-high; cook 2 minutes.
3. Place bread on baking sheet; lightly coat with spray. Broil 1 minute. Rub garlic over toasted side; turn bread over. Top with Asiago; broil 1 minute.

Enjoy!