Dear soup fans,
Judy and I realize that we have not graced you with any new soup recipes lately, but believe us.... this one was worth the wait! We're glad that fall has arrived in full force here in Brooklyn, because now it is prime soup weather. Back in early fall, we were brainstorming some good fall soup recipes and we discussed a yummy tomato soup, perhaps with some cheese involved. I spontaneously suggested a "pizza soup" and Judy loved the idea! I have to admit that I thought I had come up with an original idea, but the internet proved me wrong. There are a bunch of pizza soup recipes out there. We used ideas from some of those recipes, but I must say that we took a pretty unique pizza soup approach. Let me explain the magik of pizza soup....
Ingredients:
3-4 tbsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
About 2 cups mushrooms, sliced
3-4 garlic cloves, chopped
2 medium red or green peppers, chopped
2 veggie Italian sausage links, sliced (of course you can use real sausage if you want this to be a meat lovers pizza soup)
1 vegetable bouillon cube, diluted in two cups water (or use chicken bouillon for meat lovers)
28 oz. can of peeled tomatoes
fresh basil
salt
fresh oregano
black pepper
red pepper flakes
1 large block of mozzarella cheese, sliced
For garlic bread:
One loaf of bread (we used a ciabatta)
3-4 cloves of garlic
3-4 tbsp. of butter
fresh basil
black pepper
salt
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees for the garlic bread. Heat the olive oil in a large pot and sautee the onions, mushrooms, peppers and garlic until mixture is soft and onions are translucent. Add the sliced sausage and stir so it gets heated through. Add the can of tomatoes and mush up the tomatoes in the pot with a spoon or fork. Add the vegetable bouillon and stir several times. At this point, you can start seasoning to taste with pepper, salt and fresh herbs like basil, oregano, thyme, red pepper flakes. The soup should look something like this:
While occasionally stirring the soup and letting it simmer, prepare the garlic bread. Lightly grease a baking sheet. Slice the loaf of bread lengthwise and in half. Put 5-6 pats of butter on all sides of the bread and sprinkle the chopped garlic on as well. Sprinkle a little bit of salt and pepper and a few basil leaves on the bread. Stick it in the oven and bake for about 15 minutes, until the butter has all melted andthe bread is a little crispy.
This is when we got really creative. Judy had a flash of soup brilliance and she suggested that we put the garlic bread and mozzarella on top of the soup and bake it briefly (think French onion soup). We went with it.
When the soup is done simmering and is seasoned to your taste, carefully pour 3/4 of the soup into an oven-safe baking dish or oven-safe individual bowls. Save the other 1/4 to pour into bowls later because the bread absorbs a lot of liquid. Slice the garlic bread into individual pieces and place them on top of the soup, like this:
Then, add the slices of cheese on top of the bread. Don't forget to wear a funny apron.
Turn the heat up to 450 degrees or switch to broil if you can, and place the pizza soup-to-be in the oven for 5-8 minutes. The cheese should be melted and a little bit brown and bubbly. Place the bread/cheese/soup mixture into bowls and pour the left over soup over that. Voila! Pizza soup!
Even Luanna kept begging for pizza soup scraps...
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