Creamy Tomato Basil Soup

I grow several herbs indoors year round.  One of my best producers is sweet basil and honestly, you simply can't have too much basil!  Sweet basil germinates easily and is rather problem free.  New plants can be started simply by putting the cuttings in water.  Properly looked after, you will have all the sweet basil you can use.  Basil can easily be dried, works well as a canning ingredient and basil pesto freezes well. 

Working the rule of three, I kicked up a cold weather, pantry favourite that starts with a base of home canned beef stock and home canned tomato basil sauce.  In this case, the three were: frozen, canned, dry all from the pantry.  Yes there are home canned tomato soup recipes and I do a couple but I find certain sauces lend themselves nicely for soup.   I added ditali pasta, ground beef and few more ingredients but the special ingredient, cream cheese really took this soup to the next level! 

Wow, the cream cheese addition was a huge winner!  This soup was rich and creamy with just a wee hint of tang.  It was a true comfort meal, perfect for a chilly winter day that paired nicely with a loaf of homemade sourdough bread.