TN: 0 Tomato Soup

Last week my Shadowrun group met again. While I generally try to make a good thematic lunch for everyone, I just didn’t want to work that hard.  The run involved the characters stealing some genetic samples from a cyber animal research facility, which doesn’t really suggest an obvious meal.  Since most of my prep time involved stating out assault rhinos and cyber dogs I decided to pull out an old faithful recipe from the file: quick and easy tomato soup.  This recipe is adapted from Giada De Laurentis’ Quick and Spicy Tomato Soup, with some modifications for better texture.

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 large carrots peeled and chopped (about ½ pound
• 1 small (baseball sized) yellow onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic (about the size of a finger segment) minced
• 1 26oz jar marinara sauce (I like Newman's Own Carbernet Marinara here) 
• 28oz chicken broth (two cans or just measure it out from a box)
• 1 15oz can cannellini beans (aka white beans), drained and rinsed 
• ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
• ¾ cup spiral pasta

Heat the olive oil in a large pot, or Dutch oven, over medium high heat until water flicked into it pops and sizzles. Add the carrot, onion and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until the onions are translucent.  This shouldn’t take more than 4 minutes.

Next, put everything else in the pot.  That’s pretty much it.  Give it a good stir, let it simmer for at least 10 minutes, and you have a delicious tomato soup.  

You can add more red pepper flakes if you like it spicy, but remember that a little goes a long way and there’s no going back.  Add ¼ teaspoon at a time, give it about 5 minutes of cooking to work its way in and then give it a taste, repeat as necessary.  

A note about the pasta:  you can use just about any non-string pasta (like spaghetti or linguini) here.  I’ve personally found that hollow pastas (like macaroni) tend to slip around too much when in soup, and the tiny pastas (like the pastina recommended in the original recipe) just don’t really bring much texture to the soup.

This soup goes great with a grilled cheese sandwich or cheddar cheese bread, but that’s a recipe for another time.