Campbell's Harvest Orange & Sun Ripened Yellow Tomato Soups

Recently, I had some pretty harsh words for Campbell's Chicken Wonton Soup - and Campbell's chicken soups in general, which are pretty lousy.

But I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and so here I am, praising two "Limited Edition" Campbell's Tomato Soups:  Harvest Orange and Sun-Ripened Yellow.

Lynnafred and I found a bunch of these condensed soups on a clearance table at the local Price Chopper.  Neither of us had seen them on the shelves before, so we were both surprised to find them being marked down - we had never had the opportunity to buy them at full price to begin with, and here they were, getting rid of them!

Last summer, about a third of the tomato plants we set were heirloom varieties which produced orange or yellow fruit.  Lynnafred especially is fond of yellow tomatoes, which are slightly sweeter and significantly less acidic than their traditional red relatives. She scooped up four cans of each of the unique Campbell's concoctions in the hope that they would prove as delicious as the actual fruit.

Her gamble paid off: both the Harvest Orange and the Sun-Ripened Yellow Tomato Soups are pretty damn good.

They are both condensed soups and call for one can of soup to be mixed with one can's measure of water before heating.  We've always preferred the creaminess of Campbell's tomato soup made with milk, however, so that's the way Lynnafred prepared these "alt tomato" soups.

The Harvest Orange Tomato Soup is made with roasted garlic, rosemary, sage, black pepper, and Dijon mustard.  The flavor is delicious - the seasoning balance is just right with a unique flavor that is tasteable even through the familiar, semi-sweet Campbell's Tomato Soup flavor profile.

The Sun-Ripened Yellow Tomato Soup is surprisingly more standard-tasting.  The ingredients - including cilantro, jalapeno pepper, lime juice, and thyme - indicate that perhaps Campbell's might have been going for some kind of "southwest" flavor, but none of the seasonings were assertive enough to be recognizably unique.  Lynnafred described it as very close in flavor to standard tomato soup, "only totally better."  If only we'd found them on the supermarket shelves during their first run.