Easy Tomato Soup

I've been sick a lot lately.  I can't get over one thing before the next hits.  My immune system has taken a big hit this year due to severe allergies and the first year being in the schools so much.  Everyone tells me that every new teacher is sick the first year while their bodies build up immunity to everything that all of the students, families and coworkers bring in.  I rarely got sick when I worked in an office of ten people but now I'm in multiple schools with hundreds of people in each school.  Anyway, I've had to find some foods that are easy to make and easy on the stomach.  I really needed a soup but I hate eating canned soup.  Have you read the labels on those things?  There are some crazy ingredients in those little cans.  And I have recipes for big soups but they take longer to cook and prepare.  I was sick enough a few times that I couldn't stand for more than a few minutes without getting sick again.  So, I found this soup and modified it to my own taste.  It uses canned tomato sauce which has fewer ingredients.  You could, of course, use homemade tomato sauce which I hope to have plenty of in a few years when I am able to get my garden really going.  But right now, the tomatoes at the store are horrible.  I also typically try to use canned foods with low sodium or no added sodium but I don't on the tomato sauce.  The low sodium tomato sauce has other unnecessary ingredients, one of which is a corn product.

Ingredients:
½ tsp. onion powder
1 Tbsp. butter
1 cup tomato sauce (no cans for corn free)
¼ tsp. dried basil
Pinch of dried thyme
Pinch ground black pepper
1 cup chicken stock
Handful of parmesan cheese (optional)
Saltines (optional)

Directions:
In a small saucepan, mix tomato sauce, butter, chicken stock, herbs and spices.  Bring to a simmer.  When soup is warm through turn off the heat and add the parmesan if desired.  Serve warm with saltines.