Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese

This is a really jazzed up, adult friendly version of what you remember having as a kid. This is healthy and hearty and worth putting in the extra effort for the home made soup!

1 28 oz. chopped tomatoes
2 yellow onions, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 C chicken stock
1 C milk
2 tsp dried basil (fresh basil might be even better... I was on a tight budget and wanted to splurge on the cheese)
2 bay leaves
4 TBSP butter
Oil
Salt/pep

1 big crusty rustic loaf of bread (a ciabatta is nice)
1/2 lb young asiago cheese
1/2 lb fontina
Butter

Preheat oven to broil. Drain the tomatoes, reserving the liquid, and spread on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle tomatoes with olive oil, salt and pepper. Broil until tomatoes are caramelized (6 minutes). Meanwhile, saute all your chopped veggies in some olive oil in a medium sized pot until tender (about 10 minutes). Add in the caramelized tomatoes, tomato liquid, butter, chicken stock and dried herbs. Cover and reduce heat to simmer. Let simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat, add milk and blend until smooth.

Preheat grill pan over medium-low heat. Grate cheese. Spread one side of one piece of bread with butter and put butter-side down on grill pan. Add grated cheeses. Cover with another slice of bread and butter the top. Cook on each side for about 4 mins. You can rotate bread 90 degrees to get grill marks if desired.

We made enough soup to be able to freeze a serving each so we can do this again. It's a good use of left over cheeses, but the asiago and fontina work so so nicely!!!