amazing discovery of the week:

Tomato bisque is easy to make. This is an amazing discovery for me because I love tomato bisque...no idea why I never looked into this before. Probably because I only have it at those fancy soup and sandwich places (and Noodles & Co, haha). [[True confession: I HATE tomato soup (like the canned stuff) and always have. I wonder why I ever even tried eating tomato bisque...]] Yes, I went an easier route (read: canned tomatoes) than some recipes that are out there, but it is still quite tasty. All we did:

--finely dice a medium yellow onion
--sautee until translucent in 1 T butter and 1 T olive oil (or whatever combination of oils/fats you prefer)
--stir in 1 T of flour (or corn starch) and 1 T sugar and cook for at least 1 min while stirring continuously to prevent burning
--add a little bit of water (I added probably 1/4-1/2 c)
--stir in 1 T Better Than Bouillon (or you can use a can of chicken broth instead of this and water)
--add two 28 oz cans of crushed tomatoes
--add salt, pepper, sugar, chicken broth stuff to taste
--bring to a boil
--reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 min; add more liquid if you need it
--allow to cool some and add 1.5-2 c half-and-half (or heavy whipping cream) or don't add it to the pot and simply add desired amount to each bowl

So easy. We didn't even bother with pureeing it (I generally hate pureeing soup in a blender...at least my blender...because it takes so long). Using crushed tomatoes and finely dicing the onions makes for a pretty fine-textured soup.

This plus a colby jack on poppyseed/sesame seed/hazelnut bread sandwich Foremanned made for the perfect lunch for today. Yay for a perfect lunch to suit the weather; boo for it only being like 51* today. And rainy. Ick.