Tomato-Basil Parmesan Soup - Review

This soup was AMAZINGLY good. And vegetarian. Mwa ha ha. I realized that as my husband was asking what was in it - hoping it had some kind of meat in it. When I told him what was in it he said, "So, it's basically like a drink?" I told him to sit down and eat his dinner. And he loved it. And then sneakily fixed himself an egg roll afterward. And a peanut butter sandwich. We're working on the vegetarian night here still, apparently. :)

from 365daysofcrockpot.com

This was not too bad to make, except at the end it calls for making a roux. That is basically mixing a fat with flour to make something to thicken your dish up. For this recipe, you melt 1/2 cup butter, then pour in 1/2 cup flour, and whisk for 5-7 minutes. When you are done, you have an unimpressive runny mixture. Ta da! BUT, when you add in the hot soup, crazy things happen. I have actually never seen something react that quickly, so be prepared. When you dump in the first cup of soup, it will IMMEDIATELY thicken up. It's crazy. Get that all stirred together, then add the other three cups at once, and stir. It will amazingly enough still be thick. Then you dump that all back into the crock pot and stir, then add the remaining ingredients. Not too hard.

This soup smelled SO good when it was cooking, and it had a really good flavor. My kids were a little "eh" about it - the 7-year old ate a serving of it and was done. The 4-year old decided that it looked unappetizing and he didn't want to eat it. We have a family rule (that we learned from a much wiser family) that you have to eat as many bites of a dinner as you are old, so he had to eat four bites of it. He actually liked it, but it was admitting defeat at that point, and he wasn't quite willing to do that.

I would probably eat this daily if it was an option. I almost had some after breakfast today. And I don't typically eat "dinner-y" things early in the day. I thought it was THAT good.

Family Rating: ***1/2
My Rating: *****
Cost: $ (all veggies!)
Difficulty: Moderate - due to the veggie chopping and the roux making. Not quite "dump it all in the crockpot and forget about it", but it wasn't too bad to make either.