Homemade Cream of Tomato Soup

from A Coalcracker In The Kitchen

The recipe, and instructions, below are all from a post from A CoalCracker In the Kitchen, Lori Fogg.  After her death, her blog was removed from the internet.  This is a saved version of her Recipe & Notes.

Ingredients

• 4 Tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup chopped onion
• 3 cups water
• 2 – 15 ounce cans petite diced tomatoes, with juice
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons Better Than Bouillon chicken flavor
• 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 3/4 teaspoon celery salt
• Salt as desired
• 1 cup whole milk, light cream or half and half

Directions

1. Melt butter in soup pan, sautee onions about 5 minutes until soft but not browned.
2. Add flour and cook 1 minute.
3. Remove from heat and add remaining ingredients except the milk.
4. Return to heat, bring to boil, cook 5 minutes.
5. Working in batches, place tomato mixture and milk in blender and blend until smooth.

More From Lori:

I have always used petite diced tomatoes in this recipe. I like the ratio of tomatoes to juice in that variety. My choice of bouillon is Better Than Bouillon brand, but I recommend using a paste-style base rather than a powdered style or bouillon cubes for best results.

When blending hot soup in a blender, work in batches to avoid burns and overfilling the container. This soup reheats well. When not serving this soup with toasted cheese sandwiches, i garnish it with a few sprigs of fresh basil and a sprinkling of garlic-cheese croutons.

=================

Index Of Coalcracker Recipes on This Blog
https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-coalcraker-in-kitchen.html

From Lori's now archived blog:
What is a “Coalcracker” and what the heck are you doing in the kitchen?
“Coalcracker“: Affectionate term for a resident of Northeastern Pennsylvania, but particularly of the Anthracite (coal) Region (Scranton to the Lehigh Valley to Schuylkill County).

With the expansion of the mining and railroad industries. English, Welsh, Irish and German (the “Dutch” (Deutsch) in Pennsylvania Dutch) immigrants formed a large portion of the population, followed by Polish, Slovak, Ruthenian, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Italian, Russian and Lithuanian immigrants.

The influence of these immigrant populations is still strongly felt in the region, with various towns possessing pronounced ethnic characters and cuisine. Throw in some influence from the Pennsylvania Dutch of the Schuylkill County and Lehigh Valley areas and you have a sampling of Coal Region comfort foods!

The Coal Region is a historically important Anthracite (“hard coal”) coal-mining area in Northeastern Pennsylvania in the central Appalachian Mountains, comprising Lackawanna, Luzerne, Columbia, Carbon, Schuylkill, Northumberland, and the extreme northeast corner of Dauphin counties.