I cannot say how proud I am of myself for what I just did. Let me set the scene for you:

• First day back at work after a long weekend, and the rain has continued to pour
• It was cold in the office, so I wore my jacket all day
• Just arrived home, feeling the hunger starting to brew
• Not in the mood to cook too much. Would love to order takeout, but 1) need to watch my budget, 2) need to watch my diet, 3) I would feel bad for any delivery person who had to drive in this rain during the evening commute, 4) I already have food
• Already noticed the small container of hummus I bought was starting to grow some hints of fuzz, so I needed to find a quick way to use it, not dispose of it, short of eating straight out of the container like I did the other night
• I started to crave pizza, or anything under the “comfort food” category

It’s not often a cooking event happens in my kitchen where I am able to score multiple wins with whatever it is that I cooked. Tonight? Ding…ding…FRIGGIN DING!!

I was gazing into my pantry eating a slice of fresh mozzarella to tide me over. I didn’t like that I was eating anything cold but I needed to hush my stomach for a bit until I figured out what to make. I scanned my second shelf, which seems to have a pasta & canned tomato theme going on, and noticed I had two cans of Progressive Tomato Soup. I usually stray away from canned tomato soup because it’s too runny, and when you’ve had thick, homemade tomato soup well, there’s just no beating that. I guess in theory I could make my own tomato soup from scratch someday but I don’t have an immersion blender, and I don’t want to use my real blender or a hand mixer because –> pain in the ass to clean up.

Back to the task at hand. When I realized I had tomato soup, I remembered something I saw from yesterday about what else to do with chickpeas (you know, the ball-shaped form of hummus). For the life of me I can’t remember which site I saw it on and my browser history is no help, but it said to blend chickpeas into tomato soup to make it thicker. It’s an excellent source of protein and a good alternative to adding heavy cream. Well huzzah, I don’t have to blend it, because I already got hummus I’m trying to get rid of! Just below my pantry is where I also keep flatbread that I bought with the intention of eating healthy (I don’t know how well I’m succeeding in that area), but so far have only used 2 out of the 6 flatbreads in the bag. And then I remembered the packs of provolone and Colby-Jack I had in my fridge I bought a few weeks back but still hadn’t done anything with —

Sidebar: I have a lot of cheese. And in different forms: a 2-lb bag of shredded cheddar jack, a pack of provolone, a pack of Colby-Jack, sliced mozzarella – all for one person. Huh.

— Was I thinking I was going to make sandwiches? I don’t even buy bread anymore, I’m trying to lay off the carbs.

You know a lot of this post was coming together in my head as I was doing this but now I’m forgetting what I thought of. I can’t cook and type at the same time. Maybe I should record myself and transcribe later?

ANYWAY, these ingredients were gathered together on my counter by an excited me:

Maybe for years people have been putting chickpeas or hummus into their soups to thicken them up and I’m late to the game but let’s not rain on my parade here, there’s been enough rain where I live. This quasi-recipe doesn’t have any measurements, barely any cook times or temperatures, it’s just slapping things together. So let’s begin. I poured the soup into a small pot over MEDIUM heat. I have a tendency to underestimate the power of my ’80s stove; I step away from the stove often, but briefly, especially when I’m waiting for something to boil. Then I hear it overflowing onto the burner and that’s when I just hate life. Tomato soup is not something I wanted to clean up so I started off on medium while I did this:

Assemble the “grilled cheese” portion of the meal but instead of grilling, we’re going to slide this one into the small-yet-mighty toaster oven:

Whatever temperature your toaster oven setting is under “toast,” go with that. I set the timer for “medium,” which looks to be 5 minutes.

I wanted the soup to be ready by the time the grilled cheese (what am I calling this, toasted cheese roll-up?) was done, so I turned the heat up to HIGH because I knew I wasn’t going to leave. After a few minutes, I put in the entire remaining container of hummus (I had already eaten about a third of it, so two-thirds of a 10-ounce container):

I kept the heat on HIGH and stirred until the hummus was broken up. By then the soup had thickened up, and gave a small splatter out of the pot. Oh hell no, soupy (as I wiped up), we have people watching, you can’t be creating a mess. The ding from the toaster oven had also gone off, so I removed the pan to let the flatbread cool down. I turned the heat off and removed the soup from the stove, still stirring, then set it on the counter to cool as well.

With both the soup and flatbread cooling, I attempted to roll up that beautifully melted cheese:

I plated both and was ready to eat! That took, what, maybe 15-20 minutes? Eating it all took only 5 minutes:

No peeling, no chopping…I thought about adding herbs and spices but the soup was already seasoned, and the hummus was enough additional flavor. It was hearty, and combined with the ooey-gooey cheese…whoever invented this combination is a genius.

So where were the wins? Let’s check the list:

• All hummus consumed so I don’t have to worry about it growing mold & throwing it out? Check.
• Did I cook very much? No. Check.
• Did I have to wait long to eat? No. Check.
• Did I make a mess? Is there a lot to clean up? No. Check.
• Was my comfort food craving satisfied? Yes. Check.
• Am I satiated? With only one serving, yes! Check.
• Do I feel guilty about what I ate? Nope! Check.

Bonus: wasn’t planning on posting today but I had to share. Two posts in two days? SCORE.

Ah, grilled (er, toasted) cheese and tomato soup, I don’t think you’ve ever let anyone down. In whatever shape or form you come in, you’re always a hit.