roasted garlic soup

i received the joy of cooking as a gift for christmas. i asked for it. it is the ultimate staple cookbook. as i'm back to cooking again, i've been realizing that i make a lot of fancy stuff and none of the basics. so that is why i asked for this one. while i was flipping through the book on christmas morning, the first recipe that caught my eye was roasted garlic soup. it sounded simple and tasty.

i made it tonight. my favorite part was roasting the heads of garlic. i love the way it makes my house smell. i used to roast up garlic and just spread it right on some hot bread that i'd get from the italian bakery down the street back when i lived in chicago.

the recipe calls for the joy of cooking number 2 way of roasting the garlic. i used to just wrap it up in tinfoil but their method was different. chop off the top third of 6 heads of garlic, place them in an 8x8 dish, add chicken stock into the pan until it covers the bottom third of the garlic heads, and then drizzle 2 Tbsp. olive oil over the garlic. cover with tin foil and roast the garlic in a 325 degree oven for an hour.

the rest is quick after the garlic is finished. you squeeze out the garlic into three cans of chicken stock which you poured into a pan on the stove and whisk it all together. this purees most of the garlic but also leaves some nice chunks. i suppose this would be a good time to use one of those emulsion blenders if you have one. i don't and the roasted garlic is very mild so i like the chunks. you tear up three pieces of white bread without the crust into small pieces and add that in there, add some salt, pepper, paprika and the juices left from the rosted garlic and then let it all simmer for about 5 minutes.

after i laddeled the soup into my bowl, i freshly shredded some manchego cheese over the top so it melted right in. this soup is so awesome. and it was perfect tonight because it's cool outside and it's the perfect cold-weather soup. it doesn't seem like it would be filling, but even with that little bit of bread, it adds alot of body into the soup and makes it quite hearty.  i also made a greek cucumber and tomato salad which i ate as well.

note* 1 cup of this soup is only 4 weight watchers points.