Creamy Tomato Blue Cheese Soup

There is a wonderful bookstore in Memphis called Davis Kidd that I love to visit. They have a great children's section, author signings, and a really comprehensive selection of books. There's a little cafe attached called Bronte Bistro. They have a yummy everyday menu, and their gimmick is to use recipes from cookbooks they sell as their daily specials. There are a few other locations if anyone else is lucky enough to be near one!

Anyway, they have the most delicious tomato blue cheese soup and I had been trying in vain to recreate it at home. I probably tried 3 or 4 iterations using a hodgepodge of online recipes, going back for tastings, and always coming up with something that wasn't creamy enough, or tasted to blue cheesy, or was too chunky. Recently I stumbled upon an old friend's blog and discovered that she was attempting to do the exact same thing and was also having only modest success! But smart cookie that she is, she and her husband ASKED the restaurant for their recipe! Genius. As it turns out, I was on the right track, but I was missing ONE key ingredient. Want to guess what it was? (Answer at the bottom!)

2 T butter
1 yellow onion
1 T minced garlic
1 c flour
1.5 quarts water
2 (32oz) cans diced tomatoes
1/2 lb bleu cheese

2 T salt
1 t white pepper
1 c heavy cream

Melt butter, dice onions and saute until translucent along with garlic. Add flour to make roux. (Careful not to burn) Whisk water into roux until smooth. Add diced tomatoes, bleu cheese, salt and pepper. Bring to boil and turn off heat. Add cream. Puree with hand blender or food processor. Serves 10-12.

Note: This is a fun use for the immersion blenders that everyone got for Christmas this year! (Thank you, Robin, for mine!)

(Answer: I was missing the flour! I never thought to make a roux first, and none of the other recipes I found online did this!)