Southwestern Tomato Soup

This soup is from the current issue of Fine Cooking. It is Southwestern Tomato and Roasted Pepper Soup. I don't particularly like tomato soup, but I'm kind of a sucker for anything that starts out with the word "southwestern." So naturally this was the first thing I had to make from the issue. I can describe it best as the love child of tomato soup and chili. It has the flavor of peppers and spices (chili powder and cumin) to give it that chili taste, but it is smooth and creamy like a blended soup. I liked it the first night but really I wasn't all that excited about it. But the following day, it was fantastic! After a night in the fridge, the acidity had toned down a bit and the flavors had melded and it was just great. You make a lime sour cream for a garnish and that was good. But I crumbled queso fresco on the leftover soup and I enjoyed that more. I would imagine some crispy tortilla strips would be quite lovely too. This soup, as well as the other tomato soups in the article, uses canned tomatoes (since it is February!) So that makes it nice for anytime you want a quick warming soup using basically pantry ingredients. I can't post the recipe because it is in the current issue but the issue itself has a lot of great things so you should pick it up. BTW, I served it with quesadillas, for a tex-mex tomato soup and "grilled cheese" combo.