CREAMY TOMATO SOUP AND ITALIAN PATTY MELTS

Steps:

• Heat the milk over moderate heat in a medium pot. Put tomatoes, tomato paste, onions, salt and pepper, sugar, flour, butter, celery into a food processor and grind until smooth. Pour mixture into milk and raise heat to bring soup to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes. While soup cooks, make pesto and sammies.
• Fill the food processor with watercress, loosely packed. Add hazelnuts, 1/2 of the oil and garlic cloves to the watercress in the processor. Add nutmeg, salt and pepper to the processor bowl, set lid in place and pulse grind the mixture into a thick paste. Add any remaining watercress to the processor and grind into the paste by pulsing the processor again. Transfer watercress paste to a bowl. Stir in the remaining oil and the cheese. Taste pesto sauce and adjust seasonings.
• Heat a griddle over medium high heat. Drizzle the pan with extra-virgin olive oil and add the patties and cook 5 minutes on each side. Remove from the griddle and add another tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil and the peppers and onions. Season the peppers and onions and cook until just tender, 5 minutes. Remove them from the griddle. Wipe the griddle clean and reduce heat to medium low. Assemble sandwiches: place 4 slices of bread down, top with 1/4 each of the peppers onions, then a slice of cheese, a cooked sausage patty, another slice of cheese and then place bread on top. Add butter to griddle and cook sammy melts 2 or 3 minutes on each side until golden and cheese is melted. Press with spatula as sammies cook or set another heavy skillet on sammies to weigh them down.
• Pour soup into shallow bowls and add a couple of rounded spoonfuls of pesto to each dish and stir it into the soup. Cut the patty melts corner to corner and dip in the soup as you eat.