A comfort food classic.

Those rainy days. Cold days. Cuddle days. Movie nights. Creative spark of madness times.

All you want is a good ol' bowl of warm tomato soup and 'grilled' cheese sandwich.

Inspired by cold weather, people posting delicious food and food posts(mainly FOOD 52), and a craving for comfort food, we set out to make a classic our way....and the cool thing is...you don't really need a recipe, and it could easily be yours too!

So, here we go!

We wanted to make this classic combo versatile so it is an easy, impressive guest pleaser at parties (presentation is super cute and fun), but also a fast comfort food for you and your family, friends, roomies, etc. The ingredients are probably already at home...you just have to play with them.

Key ingredients to a tomato soup are really an allium or two of choice,salt, seasonings/spices/herbs of choice, a big can of tomatoes (or if you have time, you can always roast your own!) and water/broth. Simply chop up the onions. Heat a generous amount of olive oil in big pot, and saute your onions( or whatever you decide to use) with a nice big pinch of salt until they are soft. We added our black pepper , rosemary and thyme at this time. Then, just add your can of tomatoes (break it down a bit with your hands) and your cup of water or liquid, and bring it to a simmer until your desired thickness - it was suggested around 20-30 minutes, but we kinda left ours for 45 mins...until you like the taste. Season again with salt and pepper. Cool. This would be the time to add any cream or milk if you want a richer soup. Once the soup is has cooled a bit, add the roasted garlic, and blend it to get a smoother soup. You can blend a little or a lot, half of the soup or all of it, depending on how smooth or chunky you want it.

Our grilled cheese was made with olive oil sprinkled with black pepper and either rosemary or thyme on the bread instead of butter (Something we have always done.... turns out crispier and you can taste the inside a little more...especially if you have more delicate flavored cheese). But, hey, if you love the butter on your toast, by all means use it! We chose a big heap of Gruyere and Havarti cheese shredded to fill our sandwiches (you can do both together, or seperate). After crisping it on the stove top, we put it in the oven for an extra crisp and to make sure the cheese is all melted through! X)

We paired everything with a simple arugula salad with freshly cracked black pepper and a drizzle of Lucero's balsalmic vinegar...and Ta-Da! You can take simple steps to make this meal fit your dietary needs -like.... vegetarian(use water or a vegetable broth), gluten-free(gluten-free bread options that are just as good as reguar bread), vegan( sub for nut cheese, or take out the cheese completely and toast the bread with more herbs to dip in your soup )! Be creative!

You can make mini grilled cheese bites for parties and have tomato soup as your dipping sauce. Talk about a hearty, happy finger food( or fingerless with toothpicks:)) Unfortunately, we ate all of those before we got a picture during movie night:(.

Simple 'Guidelines' of what we used:

Rosemary and Thyme Tomato Soup with Roasted Garlic

-28 oz whole peeled tomato
-4-5 garlic cloves (we roasted them until needed. So go ahead and toss them into the oven with some olive oil so they dont stick to the pan right now)
-1 onion( we had purple at home)
-olive oil
-Sea salt
-Spices: freshly ground pepper ( also suggested to try cumin, red pepper flakes, dried herbs, etc)
-couple sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme (we chose more thyme to flavor)
-a cup of water or broth of choice ( we had a low sodium chicken broth in the pantry)

Gruyere and Havarti 'Grilled' Cheese