Healthy Tomato Veggie Soup

Prep:

1. Coarsely chop all the veggies on a cutting board. The best part is that you'll be blending the soup so it doesn't have to be perfect.

Make the soup:

1. Heat up a soup pot over medium heat. Once hot, add the oil and warm it up. Add The veggies into the pot, and sauté them for 7 to 10 minutes, until they've softened up.
2. Add the tomato paste, Italian seasoning, and sugar and stir to combine. Add the tomatoes (with the liquid) and the vegetable stock and stir. Bring the soup to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.

Make it smooth:

1. With an immersion blender: insert it directly inside the soup pot and blend continuously and around the pot for 2 minutes or until the soup is smooth. With a traditional blender: laddle some of the soup into the blender jar, filling it no higher than halfway, and working in batches, blend it until smooth. Transfer the blended soup to a large bowl and blend the rest. Once it's creamy and smooth, combine the batches back into the pot.
2. Bring the blended veggie tomato soup back to a boil and simmer it, uncovered, for 5 more minutes. If you want a thicker soup, simmer it longer to evaporate some of the excess liquid.
3. Ladle the veggie soup into bowls and enjoy with sliced crusty bread or a grilled cheese sandwich.