Creamy Tomato Soup with Croutons

Do you use your cookbooks much? I've come into several interesting cookbooks in the last few months- some are gifts and some are review copies. I read them like novels from cover to cover as soon as they fall into my hands, but somehow never get around to cooking from them. When it comes to looking for a recipe, I seem to reflexively start typing search terms into a web browser rather than hitting up the cookbooks.

So I went through my recently acquired cookbooks and bookmarked (I mean, actually bookmarked with little bits of paper- imagine that) a few interesting recipes to try. The hits will find their way to the blog, of course.

Today's recipe comes from a book called Copykat.com's Dining Out At Home Cookbook 2: More Recipes for the Most Delicious Dishes from America's Most Popular Restaurants by Stephanie Manley.

Manley has been posting recipes on her website copykat.com since 1995- that's positively historic in Internet years, isn't it? In the introduction to the cookbook, she says that the website started as a way to store family recipes and capture food memories, like the one of eating her grandmother's sauerkraut: "Her sauerkraut was homemade, meaning she made it from cabbage, salt and time".

Manley's "thing" is to replicate recipes from restaurants. I can so relate to this. I love eating out- always have. As a teenager I ate my way through all the iconic foodie addas of Bombay. Cooking for myself (and later for myself and my small family) in the US, eating out is a more or less weekly break from the routine. And restaurant meals are my biggest source of inspiration to try new ingredients, flavors and techniques in my home kitchen.

In all three states we've lived in, in the US, we tend to seek out small local places rather than the chain restaurants. This doesn't have a whole lot to do with snobbery. It is more that chain restaurants seem to have precious little in the way of meatless options. We have better luck with the family run "ethnic" restaurants- Thai, Mexican, Ethiopian- and some of the eclectic local ones like vegetarian diners. When I have the option of supporting a local business, I'll choose that any day. But I do realize that in vast swatches of the US, fast food and chain restaurants are sadly the only choices for eating out.

So it was astonishing to look through the restaurants covered in this cookbook and realize that after 15 years in this country, I haven't stepped foot even once at any of the "big" chains like Chili's, Dairy Queen, The Cheesecake Factory, Olive Garden or T.G.I Friday's. I've never had a drink from Starbucks- surely the only person in North America not to have chugged a whatchamacallit. My experience with fast food and casual dining is woefully limited. When I am someplace with only fast food choices, I try to find one of two places. Either a Subway- they have a veggie patty which I load with veggies (lots of spinach, never lettuce), and smother in southwest dressing and it is OK. Or a Chipotle, where I get the crispy tacos and the hottest salsa they have, which is pretty hot. I've eaten a Taco Bell veggie burrito at some airport once. And on rare trips to the mall in St. Louis, we would grab lunch at California Pizza Kitchen- they had a decent white bean hummus. In St. Louis, we lived a few blocks away from a Qdoba and I liked their taco salad every now and then. It is served in a huge crispy shell, so what's not to love? And of course there was also a St. Louis Bread Company nearby. That's a chain that started in St. Louis and everywhere else, they're called Panera Bread but in STL, they kept the original name. Here in town, I took my parents to an IHOP once and can't say I was impressed by anything other than the massive portion sizes.

Chain restaurants are as popular as they are because they are quick and convenient. They use the power of salt, sugar and fat to make food as appealing to as many people as possible. And these menus often have eye-popping items that are just way over the top: there's a Katz's Deli cheesecake shake included in the book where you blend a slice of cheesecake and vanilla ice cream into a shake. Who comes up with this stuff? The point is, if you can find a way to make a restaurant favorite at home, using fresh and whole ingredients as much as possible, that can only be a good thing and a welcome addition to the meal rotation.

Manley's copykat cookbook is simply written- there are no pictures, only text recipes. Recipes are well-written and easy to follow. The format is tidy, covering all courses of the meal, and there are helpful icons to indicate recipes that are make-ahead, for instance, or good for game day. There's a section for favorites like Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay biscuits- even I've heard of those. Manley tries to use "real" ingredients as much as possible but she's a fan of these restaurants and she's replicating recipes as closely as possible, not judging them or making healthy versions of them.

Overall, this is a very fun cookbook. Among the recipes I've bookmarked to try: TGI Friday's Mediterranean hummus with a bruschetta topping, Benihana's fried rice, Olive Garden's salad dressing and a strawberry shortcake. The one I tried this afternoon is Creamy Tomato Soup, a copykat of the one at Panera Bread.

I distinctly remember eating this soup for a quick lunch at Panera Bread (well, it was called St. Louis Bread Company) while walking back from the library with infant Lila strapped to my chest, one of her first outings into the world. It is a very rich and comforting soup and Manley's fool-proof recipe got the flavor just right for me. If you've in the mood to make a thick and rich restaurant-style tomato soup at home, this one is worth a try. Last time Lila was too young to taste the soup; today she happily ate two bowls of it.

Creamy Tomato Soup

(In the style of the creamy tomato soup at Panera Bread; 

recipe adapted from Copykat.com's Dining Out At Home Cookbook 2 by Stephanie Manley)

1. Heat 2 tbsp. butter in a large pot.
2. Saute 1 medium chopped onion and 3-4 cloves garlic, stirring so that garlic does not burn.
3. When the onion is translucent, add 2 tbsp. flour and stir for a couple of minutes.
4. Add 1/2 cup whole milk and stir until the mixture thickens.
5. Add 1/2 cup cream, a pinch of baking soda, 2 tsp. sugar, 1 tsp. salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to taste, 1/2 tsp. dried basil and 1/2 tsp. dried oregano.
6. Add 1 28-oz can of tomatoes (I used unsalted peeled whole tomatoes).
7. Use an immersion blender to blend the soup to a smooth consistency.
8. Simmer on low heat for 15 minutes. 

Note: You could add 1 cup half and half instead of 1/2 cup each of milk and cream.

I served the soup with croutons made simply by tossing cubes of stale bread in olive oil and oven-toasting for 10-15 minutes at 300F until crisp.

Are you a fan of chain restaurants? What restaurant recipes would you most like to replicate?

Disclaimer: I was sent a review copy of Copykat.com's Dining Out At Home Cookbook 2 by the publisher, Ulysses Press. I received no monetary compensation and all opinions expressed in this review are my own.