Blushing Tomato Basil Soup

Here's my Facebook status update from early Sunday morning:

As a later-in-life morning person, I am SHOCKED AND APPALLED that someone rang my doorbell before 8am. If it was several years ago, I probably would have done bodily harm (even though the offender was my landlord's dad giving me tomatoes from his neighbor's garden.) News at 11: Woman Says Lack of Sleep Prompted Violent Elder Attack With Tomatoes.

 

In real life, I simply said "thank you" to Mr. Kelly, brought the bag full of tomatoes inside, and started cooking. (You may want to read on after the recipe portion of this post for a story that explains the blushing factor of this Healthy Soup Creation title.)

 

So, here's what I did...more or less:

 

• Washed and cut up a plastic grocery bag full of big, fat, juicy, homegrown tomatoes. 
• Put them in the stock pot with about 3 cups of water.
• Added a few tablespoons of minced garlic (the kind in the jar with olive oil).
• Liberally sprinkled in dried oregano.
• Even more liberally sprinkled in dried basil. (It was raining outside and I was too lazy to go out on the deck for fresh basil.) I layered in the seasonings so I'm not absolutely sure how much basil I put in but I'm guessing, when all was said and done, that there were at least 3 or 4 tablespoons.
• Seasoned to taste with salt and pepper. (I've read that phrase in recipes before so I know it's a culinary but it always SOUNDS funny to me...but I digress.) Again, it was a layering thing.
• Added in one carton of organic vegetable broth and brought to a boil. Reduced heat and simmered for about 30 minutes
• I put the soup into the blender one batch at a time until the whole stockpot was blended. Then, I brought it to a boil again, reduced the heat, and simmered it for about 30 minutes. 
• It was thinner than I wanted it to be (the blender will do that...duh!) so added in about a cup up quinoa (whole grain high in protein), brought it to a boil again, reduced the heat, and simmered for another 30 minutes or so.

 

Mmmmmmmmm. Way better than Au Bo Pain Tomato Basil Soup.

 

Ok. Now the blushing part.  

 

So, when Mr. Kelly knocked on my door with the tomatoes, I was still in my jammies. Well, jammies of sorts.  I was wearing the  light pink T-shirt I wore at the beach the afternoon prior. Yup, that's right. When we got home, I simply took off my bathing suit top (ala Flashdance, bra straps through the arm pits), took off my bottoms and the skirt I wore on top of my suit, put on jammy pants and went about my business as if I was not covered in sand and sweat. I fully INTENDED to take a shower and change into proper, clean jammies after I fed and bathed the kids and got them to bed but, alas, I never got around to it before I fell into bed myself.

 

So, that was what I was wearing when I made the soup. I'm not the neatest chef in the world, particularly when I cream a soup in the blender and it splashes back on me when I pour it back into the stockpot. By the time the soup was finished,  my pink T-shirt was splattered with tomato red splotches. 

 

After the soup, I made pancakes for the kids for breakfast. The first batch was just plain so, before too long, I had cream-colored splotches alongside the red ones on my pink, already-dirty-from-the-beach T-shirt. Then, I found the frozen blueberries and decided to make a batch with those. They were yummy and both the blueberry pancakes and the new splotches on my shirt were a lovely shade of purple.

 

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the state of my hair. At the beach on Saturday, I wore a hat all afternoon which gave me some serious hat head. But then I took it to a whole new level by sleeping on it all night. 

 

So, when my doorbell rang again at noontime, you would THINK I would have ducked down out of sight and pretended not to be home. I was braless, wearing a stained, dirty T-shirt that resembled a Jackson Pollock painting, and unflattering, horizontal-striped, drawstring jammy pants that were literally falling down. My hair was flattened to my head and I'm guessing I smelled pretty bad. But I didn't duck down. I didn't even look out the window or say, "Who is it?" before opening the front door. I figured it was Mr. Kelly again. 

 

It wasn't. It was an acquaintance from church who is running for public office. He was there to drop off a yard sign to promote his campaign. As he stood on my front porch, he looked like he was moonlighting as Land's End model. I'm not sure who was  more horrified--him or me. The thought bubble over my head said: "Are you fricken kidding me?"  His seemed to say: "Uh-oh. She must be mortified because she looks like CRAP!"

 

The moral of the story:  Always put on clean clothes within a hour of waking up. You never know when tomatoes or a politician may show up at your door. Or wear black.