Creamy Tomato Soup And Italian Patty Melts

Total Time: 35 mins Preparation Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 20 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 4
• 4 cups whole milk
• 3 (14 ounce) cans diced tomatoes, drained
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• salt and pepper
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons butter, cut in pieces
• 1 stalk celery, coarsely chopped
• 1 garlic clove
• 1/2 cup store bought basil pesto (or use watercress and hazelnut pesto sauce see recipe below)
• 12 ounces watercress, stems removed
• 1/2 cup hazelnuts, toasted
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, eyeball it
• 2 cracked garlic cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg or 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
• extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling, plus 1 tablespoon
• 4 sweet italian sausage patties, 1/4 pound each, available in packaged meat case of the market
• 1 cubanelle long sweet italian light green pepper, seeded and sliced
• 1 medium yellow onion, sliced
• salt and pepper
• 8 slices italian bread or 8 slices bread
• 8 slices deli-sliced provolone cheese

Recipe

• 1 heat the milk over moderate heat in a medium pot.
• 2 put tomatoes, tomato paste, onions, salt and pepper, sugar, flour, butter, celery into a food processor and grind until smooth.
• 3 pour mixture into milk and raise heat to bring soup to a boil.
• 4 reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes.
• 5 while soup cooks, make pesto and sammies.
• 6 fill the food processor with watercress, loosely packed.
• 7 add hazelnuts, 1/2 of the oil and garlic cloves to the watercress in the processor. add nutmeg, salt and pepper to the processor bowl, set lid in place and pulse grind the mixture into a thick paste.
• 8 add any remaining watercress to the processor and grind into the paste by pulsing the processor again.
• 9 transfer watercress paste to a bowl.
• 10 stir in the remaining oil and the cheese. taste pesto sauce and adjust seasonings.
• 11 heat a griddle over medium high heat. drizzle the pan with extra-virgin olive oil and add the patties and cook 5 minutes on each side.
• 12 remove from the griddle and add another tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil and the peppers and onions.
• 13 season the peppers and onions and cook until just tender, 5 minutes.
• 14 remove them from the griddle.
• 15 wipe the griddle clean and reduce heat to medium low.
• 16 assemble sandwiches: place 4 slices of bread down, top with 1/4 each of the peppers onions, then a slice of cheese, a cooked sausage patty, another slice of cheese and then place bread on top.
• 17 add butter to griddle and cook sammy melts 2 or 3 minutes on each side until golden and cheese is melted.
• 18 press with spatula as sammies cook or set another heavy skillet on sammies to weigh them down.
• 19 pour soup into shallow bowls and add a couple of rounded spoonfuls of pesto to each dish and stir it into the soup.
• 20 cut the patty melts corner to corner and dip in the soup as you eat.