• Cut up all of the vegetables and tomatoes (veggies can be quite chunky).
• Saute the celery, carrot, onion, red bell pepper and Hatch chili pepper (optional) in olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat for about 10 minutes or until vegetables start to become tender.  Add the sliced garlic and saute veggies for another 1 minute. Stir vegetables frequently while cooking to avoid burning.
• Add the tomatoes to the vegetables and stir to combine everything. Add brown sugar, salt, pepper, tomato paste and chicken broth and stir.  Simmer on medium to medium low heat for about 20-30 minutes or until the vegetables and tomatoes are soft.
• Puree tomato soup by using an immersion blender (can puree in the Dutch oven) or use a blender and puree in batches until mixture is the texture that you desire.  There may still be a few chunks of vegetables but it should be mostly smooth.
• Transfer the soup back to the Dutch oven if you used blender to puree it.  Add the heavy cream, butter and fresh basil.  Stir to combine and melt the butter.
• Add additional fresh basil and freshly cracked pepper to top of soup in individual serving bowls if desired. You may place a few grilled cheese sandwich bites on top of soup or serve on the side.
• Calories for 1 serving of soup is 210.

For grilled cheese sandwich crouton bites:

• Butter bottom slice of bread and place it butter side down. (Make sure you butter bread to the edges.)  I used a plant based butter with olive oil and it was delicious!
• Add slice of cheese to bread. Place top slice of bread on top of cheese and butter it generously to the edges.
• Grill bread in frying pan on medium to medium high heat taking care not to burn it.  Bread should be browned and cheese starting to melt. Turn bread and grill other side. Turn heat down after you brown the first side to medium low so it doesn't burn. When second side is brown and cheese melted, remove the sandwich from the frying pan.
• Cut the grilled cheese sandwich into thirds both ways so you have nine small crouton bites.  Serve alongside your soup or you can place some of them in the soup with the fresh basil.
• Calories for 1 grilled cheese sandwich is approximately 334 (made with whole wheat bread at 70 calories a slice). My cheese was 90 calories per slice.