Homemade Tomato Soup from Your Food Storage

This is a recipe for homemade tomato soup that I make entirely from ingredients in my food storage. Why, you ask, don't I just keep canned tomato soup in my food storage? Well, I do; but I only keep a couple of cans. The reason for this is that tomato soup can only be used for tomato soup. Stewed tomatoes and tomato sauce can be used in lot of different recipes, so I keep more of them on hand. Besides, this soup tastes so much better than canned soup that there is no comparison. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 can stewed tomatoes (sliced or whole)
1 small can tomato sauce
1 cup water
2 tablespoons dehydrated onion
1/2 teaspoon dried garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cooking oil or canned butter

Preparation:
1. Soak the dehydrated onion for 1/2 hour until it is soft then drain
2. Open stewed tomatoes and chop fairly small. Be sure to same the juice
3. Open tomato sauce and have it ready to use
4. Heat oil in a cook pot and sauté onions until translucent. Add garlic and pepper to sautéing onion.
5. Add chopped stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, and 1 cup of water to sautéed onions.
6. Add salt and stir.
7. Let soup simmer for 20 minutes, then taste and add salt and/or pepper as needed.

A couple of notes: (1) when you make this with tomatoes fresh from the garden, it is even better, and (2) if you have dried tomatoes from you garden, you can substitute a handful of crushed dried tomatoes and another cup of water for the stewed tomatoes.

That's it. Once you've tried this recipe you'll never eat canned tomato soup again.