LUNCH: Cream of Tomato Soup & Grilled Cheese

You’re scanning the menu choices at the Spring City Hotel.  Pretty familiar fare…burgers, steak sandwiches, meatball and tuna grinders; even the Dominic Special, in homage to owner Bill Hoffman’s grandfather.  Then you see it:  “Lunch.”

Plain.  Simple.  Straightforward.  “Lunch.”

Menu excerpt courtesy Spring City Hotel, used with permission

Spring City Hotel’s take on "Lunch" is a grilled ham and American cheese on a toasted roll with lettuce and tomato.  You’ve got four of the five food groups currently advocated by the USDA in a single sandwich!  (And for those purists who know that a tomato is really a fruit…you’ve hit the Food Pyramid jackpot!)

What would make that “Lunch” heaven on earth?  You know what it is…a bowl of tomato soup!

Remember those days from elementary school?  Chicken noodle or tomato soup with grilled cheese?  Of course tomato was the better choice.  That was “Lunch.”  And cafeteria grilled cheese is in a league all it’s own.  The thick, gooey cheese is totally melted.  The bread is super crispy on the edges, but soft in the middle.  Paradise.

Ah, yes...I remember it well!
(Lunch courtesy of Royersford Elementary School)

Some kids were into dunking their grilled cheese in their soup.  Not me.  I wanted to enjoy them separately.  Not that I was fanatical about enforcing the compartments on the cafeteria tray.  I just didn’t embrace the dunking of a sandwich.  Any baker’s son knew:  Dunking is for donuts.

Grilled cheese sandwiches weren’t always that good at Royersford Elementary School.  There was a time when we didn’t have our own kitchen.  All meals were made at the Jr. High School, (now the 8^th Grade Center…and originally the Royersford High School).  Louise Holoka and her crew did their absolute best, but you haven’t lived until you’ve had a grilled cheese at noon that was made at 9:30 in the morning.  When RES got its own kitchen…that’s when we found out how grilled cheese were made!

A quick lesson in grilled cheese follows, but first the soup.  This is not your typical Campbell’s-style tomato soup.  It’s cream of tomato, so it’s kind of like making Campbell’s condensed with a can of milk.  And it has chunks…some onion, celery, and tomato.  So if you have finicky weasels at home, (a.k.a. “picky eaters” who have trouble with chunks and texture), consider pureeing the whole thing in a blender or food processor, (or use “crushed” instead of “diced” tomatoes).

This soup is amazingly simple and amazingly good.  I got the recipe from Leona Yeager, who attends Parker Ford Church.  She brought it on Christmas Eve for those of us who needed to stay between the 5:00 children’s service and the 7:00 “big people” service.  It was so good…but what isn’t on Christmas Eve?  Leona actually got the recipe from the chef of a well-known Lancaster County restaurant.  We’re keeping it a secret, because you won’t believe how easy it is to make!  It does involve a white sauce, but if you attempted the Parsley Potatoes, (March 16 post), you know all about that!  I’ve actually cut Leona’s recipe in half.  The first time I made it, I kept reaching for a bigger and bigger pot.  I was wondering if it was going to be like Homer Price and the Donut Machine.  (Now that’s dating myself, isn’t it?)  These amounts of ingredients make about a gallon of soup.

CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP

Serves:  a whole bunch of people!

Ingredients:

½ cup chopped onions (one small to medium onion)

½ cup chopped celery (about two stalks)

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup sugar (approx. – you may want to start with a little less)

One 28 oz. can diced tomatoes

One 46 oz. container of tomato juice

½ teaspoon pepper

For white sauce:

¼ lb. butter (I cut this back.  The original recipe called for a stick and a half of butter.)

¾ cup of all-purpose flour

1 quart milk (4 cups)

Put all of the top ingredients in a stock pot and gently boil for about an hour, or until onions and celery are very soft.  I like to use a large pot with a glass lid for two reasons.  I can see what's going on, and the lid has a little vent in it.  That means that I can keep the pot covered to prevent evaporation.

Make the white sauce:  In another pan, melt butter, add flour and mix thoroughly.  This is called a roux, (pronounced, “rue”).  Add about half of the milk, blending until smooth.  This time I used an electric hand blender to get started, which worked well, (see illustration).  Add the remainder of the milk, then heat on high heat, stirring constantly with a spring whisk until the mixture thickens.  (See Parsley Potatoes, March 16 post, for more detailed directions for making a white sauce.)  This is a much thinner white sauce, and will not get thick as noticeably.  If it even starts to look like it’s going to boil, it’s ready.  Remove it from the burner immediately.

Illustration:  Electric hand blender.  This worked well
for the initial blending of the milk and roux (butter and flour mixture)

Combine the white sauce and the tomato mixture.  Blend and heat thoroughly.  It’s best if this soup doesn’t boil as milk has a tendency to curdle when it does.  (That means gets lumpy and separates…never good unless you’re making cheese.)  This soup can be served from a crock pot set on low, especially if you need to have the soup available over an extended period of time.

That’s it.  How easy is that?  And it’s delicious.

Grilled Cheese Basics for Inexperienced Dads:  Bread of your choice, cheese of your choice (use either one very thick slice of cheese, or two for each sandwich), butter or margarine.  Nothing goes inside except the cheese.  Butter the outside of both slices of bread with very soft butter or margarine.  Cold, hard butter will tear the bread.  Get a frying pan, (stove top or electric frying pan), pre-heat on medium heat or slightly hotter.  When hot, put in the sandwiches.  You should hear a slight sizzle...I said slight.  If it sounds like lava hitting the ocean, it's too hot.  Check for golden brown doneness after about a minute or two by lifting a corner with a spatula.  When ready, flip with one continuous motion, as the top slice of bread will not yet be “fastened” to the rest of the sandwich.  If things slip or fall apart, just repair with your spatula.  If you want to cut the sandwiches to serve them, allow to cool for a minute before attempting.  If you don’t believe me, go ahead and try to cut them as soon as they come out of the pan.

“Lunch” is ready!

Special thanks this week to the "Lunch Ladies" of Royersford Elementary School, who always took care of me.  Nothing was ever too much trouble for them.  They always understood when I was too busy to order lunch by 9:00 AM, (like my rules stated), and showed up at 2:00 in the afternoon, starved...just like on the day I stopped by to photograph the lunch tray.  They fed me.  "Some things never change," was cafeteria manager, Nancy Ruoff's assessment.  Is it no wonder that my visits to RES since retirement have either started out or ended up in the kitchen?  Thanks, ladies!  You're the best!

The Lunch Ladies of RES, l to r:  Nancy Kearns, Nancy Ruoff (manager),
Cheryl Santiago, and Debbie Diehl