Tomato Garlic Soup with Cheese Tortellini

Have you ever had a bad week where things just don't seem to go your way? That was last week for me. So what do I do when life gets me down? I head to the kitchen to make something sweet of course! Well...and as it turned out...I also make homemade soup and bread too!  

In desperate need of some comfort food, I had a cooking extravaganza yesterday as I attempted to cook away my worries. My intent was to make a decadent chocolate dessert and blog it first thing today. But honestly, my dessert attempt didn't come out so great. It's back to the drawing board on the sweets. But like all things in life, the good often comes along with it's share of bad and here's something great that came out of yesterday's botched dessert effort. It's not chocolate... but this soup is pretty darn incredible and just as comforting!

I found this amazing recipe from Pinterest from a blog called Girlichef. This soup is beyond delicious. It's so simple, yet it packs so much flavor you'll never believe how few ingredients there are. I made some minor adjustments to the recipe only because I didn't have enough vegetable broth and I missed a step or two, but you can look at the original link below to see where I strayed from the original recipe. A simple garlic broth is the base for this Tomato Garlic Soup with hearty Cheese Tortellini. Make a big pot of it and watch it be devoured.  I made this comforting soup with some deliciously dense and savory Ham, Cheddar and Onion scones which I'll blog next. A true test of the recipe's mass appeal is if my kids like it. They have become quite picky eaters, so I was thrilled when they gave me the thumbs up on the soup. The Tomato Garlic broth packs a ton of flavor and it's definitely the broth that makes the soup. So pour yourself a big bowl and generously top it all off with some grated Parmesan cheese and enjoy because, things are definitely looking up! 

Tomato Garlic Soup with Cheese Tortellini  (slightly adapted from Girlichef)

~8 cups Simple Garlic Broth (see below)
2 cans diced tomatoes
12 oz package fresh cheese tortellini
Parmesan cheese, grated
pepper 
parsley, chopped


Simple Garlic Broth
8 cups of Vegetable Broth, or 8 c water with *vegetable bouillon cubes (*I used Knorr Tomato Bouillon with Chicken)
3 T garlic, roughly chopped
1/2 t smoked paprika 
1 large sprig fresh sage
1 large sprig fresh thyme
1 small bunch Italian Parsley
salt and pepper, to taste

Put all ingredients, except the salt and pepper, in a large pot and bring to a boil.
Turn heat down and simmer for 30 minutes. Turn off heat and strain broth, removing herbs and garlic.  Taste broth and then salt and pepper as needed. Now the broth is ready to use for the soup.  
(Sorry all the shots of the garlic broth came out blurry..this was the best one of the bunch, but you get the idea.)


Add tomatoes to the strained broth and heat to boiling, simmer for 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat and with an immersion blender (This was a gift from my Mom so I could make soups. Thanks Mom!), puree the tomatoes until smooth. 

In a separate pot of boiling, salted water, add tortellini and cook according to package directions. Drain.


To serve, add tortellini to bowls and ladle broth over them. Adding freshly grated Parmesan cheese, chopped Italian parsley and fresh pepper. Enjoy!

Look out for the Ham, Cheddar and Onion Scones blog, that's up next...