Pinterest Soup Success!!

I love Pinterest, but the amount of time that I spend on it goes up and down.  There are times when I am fully addicted and then others when I forget it's there!  I am so glad that I decided to check it out last week, because I found one of my favorite new soup recipes!  The soup magazine that I love and have used for many of the soups had a tortellini soup that I wanted to try, but this one looked better so I tried it instead! Tomato soup is one of my favorite comfort soups.  Gotta love a bowl of steaming tomato soup with a gooey grilled cheese sandwich!  This soup takes a normal can of tomato soup and makes it into a restaurant worthy grown-up version of a classic favorite.

I will list the ingredients and any changes I made below, but here is the link for the original recipe http://recipeswagger.blogspot.com/2012/08/creamy-tomato-tortellini-soup.html.

Creamy Tomato Tortellini Soup

2 whole large cloves of garlic, minced (I have a jar of minced garlic, so I used a tbsp of that.)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 10 3/4 oz cans of condensed tomato soup (I made a double batch as usual so that I would have leftovers for lunch, so I used 2 of the large family size cans of Campbell's.  I used one regular and one heart healthy.)
1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes, chopped, or 2 tbsp of sun dried tomato paste (I read the comments on the blog where I found the recipe and some people has chosen to use sun dried tomato pesto, because they couldn't find the paste and didn't want to deal with chopping the tomatoes.  I went that route too!  I used 4 tbsp of the pesto. You can decide how much you like based on the taste. I was afraid that amount might be overwhelming, but I think it was just right.)
2 cups half-and-half
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 tsp onion powder (In the comments someone said that they used 1/2 cup of real onions instead, so that's what I did too!)
1 tbsp Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 pepper
1 whole 9 oz package of cheese filled tortellini (Because I doubled it, I bought a package that was 20 oz.)
1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese, for garnish
I added a couple of cans of diced italian tomatoes to add some texture and flavor.

Saute garlic in the olive oil in a large stock pot over medium heat until golden brown (be sure to keep an eye on it so that it doesn't get too brown or burnt!)
When the garlic is done, add tomato soup, tomatoes, half-n-half, chicken stock, and spices...bring to a simmer.  Once simmering, drop tortellini into the soup.  Cook according to the package directions (the package directions said to cook for 9 minutes in boiling water, but the soup was simmering not boiling.  I'm not exactly sure how long I cooked it before the tortellini was ready, because I was getting other things ready, but I don't think it was too much longer than 9 minutes.)
After the tortellini is cooked, ladle soup into bowls and top with parmesan cheese.
(Just fyi...in the comments someone said that they put all the ingredients in the crock-pot and cooked for 3-4 hours on high, so it's worth a try!)

We had our soup with caesar salad and garlic knots that I found at Wal-Mart.  I doubled the recipe and had enough left to fill 6 of my small round containers!  Can't wait to have leftovers, because I think it will be even yummier now that the flavors have had more of a chance to fuse together.

One of my new favorites!  Give it a try and let me know what you think! :)