Tomato cream soup with herbs

1. Cut tomatoes in half and line them up (flat side up) on a cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and black pepper.
2. Cut the top off a pod of garlic (to slightly expose each clove) and remove the outermost skin. Place on aluminum foil, drizzle with olive oil, and close the foil to make a little pouch. Put the pouch on the cookie sheet with the tomatoes and bake the whole thing for around 30 minutes at 400°F.
3. Melt butter in pan.
4. Cook onion for 5 minutes to soften it.
5. Sprinkle with flour and stir for 30 seconds.
6. While stirring, gradually add milk.
7. Bring to boil, stirring constantly until sauce thickens.
8. Add crushed tomatoes and keep cooking while stirring until it begins to simmer.
9. Remove cookie sheet from oven. Pop garlic cloves out of their skins and liquefy tomatoes and garlic in a food processor. Dump liquid into soup. (Alternative: dump tomatoes and roasted garlic cloves into soup and process with immersion blender.)
10. Add basil and season with salt, and pepper.

You can also add cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes. The herbs can be anything like parsley, chive, celery leaves, thyme, or basil. This soup goes really well with melted cheese on toast.