Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup

I was going to make chickpea cutlets tonight, to celebrate the new food processor. But J is sick, so I decided to cook something for him so maybe he might feel a bit better. I had ordered some teese over the weekend so I could try it, and it was supposed to get here today, so he asked for tomato soup and grilled cheese (even though he's not vegan at all, he was excited to try a new vegan cheese). Sadly, the teese didn't come in today*, but I still made some grilled daiya sandwiches and soup.

Ingredients for tonight's dinner: tomato soup, grilled cheese, and roasted broccoli.

Ingredients for the tomato soup. I loosely followed a food network recipe (I've never made normal tomato soup before, okay?), but I deviated heavily.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup olive oil (though it wouldn't hurt to reduce this to a couple of tablespoons)
1 onion, chopped
5-6 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots
2-3 stalks of celery
28oz canned tomatoes
1 ts basil
2 bay leaves
2 tb earth balance
2 cups vegetable stock
1 cup nondairy cream
16 oz white beans

Heat up the oil, then dump all the onions, garlic, carrots, and celery in it. Saute for about 10 minutes.

At the end of ten minutes, dump in the tomatoes, earth balance, basil, bay leaves, and vegetable stock.

Stir it all up, let it simmer for about 10 or 15 minutes. 

Puree it, either with an immersion blender, a normal blender (be careful with the steam! cover the top with a towel and take out the center plug of the top if it has one), or puree the solids in a food processor, like me. The blender or immersion blender would probably do a better job getting it silky-smooth, but this worked well enough.

It was a bit redder in person. Still, I might add some tomato paste if I make it again, or leave out the cream.

While the soup was simmer, I made some grilled cheese sandwiches. Two pieces of bread, daiya on one slice, butter the outside.

No oil or anything in the pan. Just heat it until the cheese makes the sides stick together, then flip it. Make sure the butter the top side! (I forgot... twice in a row). 

I also roasted a bit of broccoli. Take a head or two of broccoli, cut it up, toss it with some oil and salt, bake at 425 or 450 degrees for about 15-20 minutes.

Overall, pretty good. I'd puree it a bit more next time, but I liked it. (also, grilled cheese! oh man, I haven't had that stuff in years! SO GOOD). J liked it, too, and made a point to eat all of the soup before he had to go.

*That's bad, because I didn't order an ice pack with it. Hopefully it's really cold wherever my teese is.