omato-tay

Typically, autumn is my favorite season.

Favorite may be the wrong word.  I’m not fond of the drizzly spitting rain, or the freezing mornings, or the DRIZZLY SPITTING RAIN, but fall is just so evocative that every time it rolls around I get distracted by this wave of ambition and nostalgia.  To me, autumn is:

• Gazing wistfully at the soft, thick scarves at Target and trying on the gloves while reminding myself that I have PERFECTLY GOOD hand-me-down gloves and a scarf from Goodwill.
• The smell of my father’s home-made potpourri.  Orange peels, apples, cinnamon.  Spicy and warm and thick.
• Wanting desperately to be a tall skinny girl with curly hair and a snood and a Beautiful Jacket.
• Suede.
• Pink cheeks.
• Finally adding that down comforter to the bed and feeling absolutely spoiled the first night you slip under it.
• Tomato soup.

Oh, hey about tomato soup.  Did you know I used to hate tomato soup?  I hated it with the fiery passion that I employed to hate nearly every other food except pickles and ketchup.

Ironic.

I know.

This continued until the autumn of last year, when I went back to my parent’s place for dinner one night.  On the stove, my father had a massive pot filled with gently rumbling soup.  Rich soup.  Red soup.  Tomato soup.  I gazed at it with a curled lip and only deigned to a ‘small bowl’ being that I ‘wasn’t that hungry, really’.

It was literally the most delicious soup in the universe.  You guys think I’m using hyperbole here.  I am not.

A few months later I asked Dad for the recipe.  Whenever I ask my Dad for a recipe, he always frowns and makes a sound like a cat that wants in.  “Wrrrell…” he said, “It’s not really a RECIPE.  Just stuff I put in.”

“That is a recipe,” I said.  “And I want it.”

Here it is, after some goading and whining on my part.   The recipe for Bagley Tomato Soup:

1 can Roasted Garlic & Sweet Onion Diced Tomatoes (S&W)
1 can Petite Diced Tomatoes
1 can Tomato Sauce

Use a blender to blend can of Garlic Tomatoes

Dump in everything with:

2 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 tsp basil
1/3 cup Splenda (or sugar)
salt and pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder

Heat and eat with garlic bread.

It should be noted that Dad’s recipe will give you chunky soup, which is okay, if, y’know, you’re into that.  I prefer my soup velvety smooth so I blend the shit out of everything that goes into it.  Also, if you aren’t able to find the S&W brand of canned tomatoes, I am sure a similar brand would work just as well.  Who knows?  You may find a fantastic new taste with a different ‘flavor’ of tomato.

Taylor and I had this soup for dinner last night, and it was the perfect solution to a long, rainy day.  We bundled up and dipped garlic bread into steaming bowls and watched ‘The Good Wife’ On Demand, and I even went for seconds and ate it without the garlic bread it was that good.  The whole thing almost made me excited about the muddy puddles growing outside.