Pioneer Woman - Tomato Soup With Sherry

This is my favorite recipe adapted from the Pioneer Woman. A decadent lunch! I tweaked it a little from her original: I reduced the sodium and fat by reducing the chicken base and butter, and changing the heavy cream to half-n-half. And I thought way more fresh basil was needed to make it taste spectacular.

• Ready In: 25 mins
• Serves: 8
• Yields: 12 cups

Ingredients

• 5  tablespoons  melted butter
• 1  medium onion, diced
• 1 (46 ounce) can tomato juice
• 2 (14 ounce) cans diced tomatoes
• 1  tablespoon  chicken base or 1  tablespoon chicken bouillon
• 3  tablespoons sugar
• 1  cup cooking sherry
• 1 1⁄2 cups half-and-half or 1 1⁄2 cups heavy cream
• 1⁄2 cup  chopped fresh basil
• 2  teaspoons dried parsley flakes
•  pepper
•  crouton (optional)

Directions

1. In a soup pot, saute diced onion in butter until translucent.
2. Decide how chunky you like your tomato soup. I like to process one of the cans of tomatoes briefly in the food processor to chop up the tomatoes more finely. You can process one or both or neither.
3. To the pot, add canned tomatoes, tomato juice, sugar, chicken base or bouillon, and pepper and stir.
4. Bring to a near boil, then turn off heat.
5. Add sherry and half-n-half or cream and stir.
6. Add parsley and basil. (or, you can save the basil to sprinkle on top of each bowl of soup). Add salt & pepper if needed to your taste.
7. Top with croutons if desired.