Cream of Tomato Soup

I adapted this from one of my favorite recipe sources Cooks Illustrated, but I took the fat content down quite a bit by cutting down on the butter and using half & half instead of heavy cream.

Cream of Tomato Soup
Ingredients:

• 2 28 ounce cans of whole tomatoes (packed in juice, not puree)
• 1 1/2 T brown sugar
• 2 T butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 T tomato paste
• pince of ground allspice
• 2 T flour
• 2 1/4 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 C half & half
• salt
• cayenne pepper

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 450 degrees and line a cookie sheet with foil.
2. Drain and seed tomatoes, reserving juice.
3. Place tomatoes in a single layer on the cookie sheet, and sprinkle with brown sugar.
4. Bake in oven approximately 30 minutes, until mostly dry and beginning to color.
5. Once tomatoes have cooled a bit, remove from foil and set aside for later.
6. Over medium heat, melt butter until foaming and then add onion, tomato paste and allspice. Cover and ook over low until onions are soft, stirring occassionally (approx. 7-10 minutes).
7. Add flour, stirring constantly, until well combined.
8. Whisk in broth, reserved tomato juice, and roasted tomatoes. (You want a total of 4 3/4 cups liquid, so adjust the amount of broth depending upon how much tomato juice you have.)
9. Increase heat to medium, cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 10 minutes.
10. Remove from heat (it's less dangerous if you let it cool a bit) and use an immersion blender (or regular blender) to puree the mixture until fairly smooth.
11. Add half & half and bring back up to serving temperature. Add salt to taste and a dash of cayenne (or more if you like it hot). Serve immediately.

This soup works really well with macaroni and cheese or grilled cheese sandwiches. This recipe makes 4-6 generous servings. If you want to use half now and half later (as I did) make the entire recipe as far as the pureeing stage, reserve half of the soup (approximately 3 cups) and add 1/4 cup of half and half to the remaining mixture and serve. When you want to serve it again, heat reserved soup until warmed throughout, and add 1/4 C of half and half.