Tasty Tuesdays

Think that you can't do an easy, healthy, CHEAP meal? I've got one for you:

4 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
salt/pepper, to taste
1/4 cup flour
3 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp thyme
2 cans (28 oz each) whole, peeled tomatoes
2 cans of chicken broth
1/4 cup sugar


Melt butter in a 5 quart saucepan over medium heat. Add oil and onion, season with salt and pepper. Cook until onion is translucent - about 5 minutes. Stir in flour and tomato paste. Cook 1 minute. Add thyme, broth, tomatoes and sugar to the saucepan, breaking up the tomatoes with your fingers. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Put half of the soup in a blender, puree it, and then return to the pot. Season with salt and pepper.

Heidi notes: I usually use a hand pureeing tool (that I used to make baby food) on the whole pot instead of doing the blender step. This makes 2 dinners worth of soup for our family.

Cost:

Usually I use canned tomatoes from our garden and chicken broth that I've made when I roast a chicken. However, I'm out of both of those, so I had to buy canned.

Butter: 1/8 of a package, so $0.25
Oil, spices, flour, sugar: pennies, since it's only a little bit. I'll give it $2 to overestimate
onion: 1 out of a pack of 8 that was $2, so $0.25
2 cans of tomatoes: 3.38
2 cans of broth: 1.38
1 can of tomato paste: 0.59

Total cost? $7.58, and it would have been less if my garden did better last year. I'm estimating 10 servings out of this (easily does 2 dinners for us), so it ends up at $0.75 per serving.

Throw in a nice tossed salad or some crusty, whole grain bread and you've got yourself a healthy meal!