Chunky Tomato Basil Soup

You know what's great? Being lazy. You know what comes in second place to laziness? Eating delicious food.  If you were my student, I would tell you that these two events are not disjoint, believe it or not. How is it possible to have delicious things be easy? I thought delicious things required hours of slaving away in a hot kitchen or lots of money to blow at a restaurant. Nope! Eat yummy soup at home, for cheap, and be lazy all at the same time! I'm statistician, not a magician, but I think this is borderline magical.

Just a few hours ago, I was strolling around campus, basking in the sunshine.  Now, the storm clouds have rolled in and are making the skies rainy and gray. Ew...but that DOES mean that today is now the perfect day for making soup! Unfortunately, a good soup day is a horrible picture day, so you'll have to excuse my photo. If I knew how to properly use a camera, I could probably figure out how to snap a good shot. But, when it comes to choosing between eating hot soup and snapping a good shot, the soup is going to win.

this picture fails to do the soup justice. 

Add

• 1/2 cup diced onion (approximately)
• one minced garlic clove

to a pot on medium-high with a bit of olive oil. Sprinkle a pinch of salt on top and then saute the garlic and onions until the onions are soft and the garlic is fragrant (about five minutes).  Then, add 

• 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes

I see no reason that you couldn't instead use a can of whole tomatoes or a can of crushed tomatoes. As far as I know, it would only affect the smoothness of the end product.

Anyway, bring the heat down once the tomatoes warm up. Cover and let simmer for 20 to 35 minutes. The size of the tomato chunks probably determine how long is necessary. If your chunks are humongous, I will allow you to add a bit of water to the pot. Of course, this will change the consistency of your soup.  

While it's simmering, add

• 2-3 teaspoons of pesto
• salt and pepper to taste
• honey to taste (optional)

The pesto is a lazy-person's way of getting some flavors in there, the salt brings out these delicious flavors, and the honey cuts the acidity of the tomatoes. (The same goes for making tomato-based pasta sauces)

Next, use an immersion blender to achieve the desired soup consistency. I like it a little chunky, so I was careful to just blend a wee bit.  If you like it smooth, go nuts with that blender...but not too nuts;  make sure you don't immerse it too long or you may damage it.  Finally, for a little creaminess, add

•  1/2 cup milk or milk substitute (optional)

Since this recipe only used one can of tomatoes, you could probably guess it only serves 1 adult or two children or two people on a diet. No worries! Use the thing called multiplication to double or triple the recipe. You can always freeze any leftovers for a future rainy day.