The Best Ruined Soup Ever

     I love this time of year!  It's starting to get chilly here in the South, and it puts me in the mood for warm soups, gumbo, freshly baked bread, and savory desserts!  C'mon, y'all have known me too long to be surprised by the fact that I ended that sentence with food.  Which brings me to the reason I'm writing tonight.  It was chilly earlier this week, so I decided it would be a nice change of pace to make some grilled cheeses with some tomato soup.  I started following this one recipe before realizing that it was not the same one I had used to make my grocery list.  I quickly switched over to following this recipe, convinced that I had ruined the whole thing, but too stubborn (and cheap) to throw the concoction out.  I'm glad I didn't, though, because what resulted was what J deemed, "the best tomato soup I've ever had!"

Ruined Tomato Soup

1/2 onion

1 medium-sized carrot, peeled

1 celery stalk, end trimmed, but leaves still attached

1 garlic clove, peeled

2 cans diced tomatoes

46 ounces tomato juice

3-6 tablespoons sugar

3 chicken bouillon cubes

black pepper

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

shredded Mozzarella, optional 

In a blender, combine onion, carrot, celery, and garlic.  Puree until smooth.  Add diced tomatoes.  Pour contents of blender into a large pot over medium heat.  Add tomato juice.  Next add the sugar.  (This is to contrast the acidity of the tomatoes, start with 3 tablespoons and taste your way to the right amount.  I wound up needing 5 tablespoons, but it just depends on your tomatoes.)  Add chicken bouillon.  Sprinkle with black pepper to taste.  Stir to combine and bring to a boil.  Remove from heat and add heavy cream, stirring to combine.  Add basil and parsley and stir.  Top with mozzarella if desired.

     As I said, this was the best soup I had ever tasted!  J polished off three bowls of it, and I enjoyed dunking my grilled cheese in it like I was a kid again.  The only one not too impressed was Monkey, but that's okay.  I had plenty soup left over to freeze and some for lunch the next day.  J downed another bowl that day before heading back to work.  That's when I decided it might be a good time to clean out the refrigerator.  As I was getting rid of certain items I found an extra bottle of heavy cream in the corner.  I checked the date and was surprised to see that it hadn't expired yet.  In fact it still wouldn't be expired for another month.  With a sick feeling in my stomach, it began to dawn on me that perhaps I should have cleaned the refrigerator out sooner.  I quickly grabbed the bottle of heavy cream from the night before and checked the date only to find that, sure enough, I had mixed up the expired one with the new one.  The cream I used in the soup had expired September 9th.  I was mortified.  I don't know how none of us got sick, especially after I got brave enough to do a sniff-test.  There goes my world's best tomato soup....

     My dear husband wasn't nearly as horrified by this discovery as I was, but maybe that's for the best, considering how much of it he ate.  He just shrugged and said, "Well, it was still delicious!"