Tomato Bisque Soup

This is a soup my mom makes and she and I have adjusted it to actually work as a recipe. The original recipe calls for - gulp - 3/4 cup of butter. The version I make is slightly different to the way we've become accustomed to making it.

The one non-diet friendly ingredient in here is cream. Yep, heavy whipping cream. But it's not that much for an entire 8 servings of soup, so you just want to pour the cream in and stir it up, making it a light reddish color. Also, I like to puree all of the finished soup in the food processor or with an immersion blender as this makes the texture really, really nice. Sometimes I have fresh tomatoes on hand and I dump those in too - can't be bad!

Ingredients:

2 T. butter or margarine

2 T. olive oil
2-3 T. plain flour
1 lg. onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp fresh thyme (if using dried then 2 tsp)
1/2 tsp fresh basil (if using dried them 1 tsp)
3/4 tsp salt (or to taste)
1/2 tsp pepper (or to taste)
2 - 28 oz cans of Italian tomatoes - I like San Marzano tomatoes
3 1/2 C. chicken broth
Heavy cream (I probably use about 1/2 cup total)

Directions:

1. In large soup pot, heat olive oil and butter over almost-medium heat and sauté the onion until clear. Add in garlic while onion is cooking, sauté for 1 more minute.
2. Add the flour (make a roux of sorts) and cook 2-3 minutes to cook the flour.
3. Dump in everything else - chicken broth, tomatoes, seasonings - but NO cream yet. Bring to a boil then let simmer about 10 minutes.
4. Remove from heat. Once the soup is not bubbling, add in the cream.
5. Puree in a food processor or use an immersion blender to smooth.