roasting

 I stood in the middle of the kitchen, around me was an organized mess with tomatoes in various stages of preparation. A giant basket of tomatoes was half empty, a bowl of roasted ones hot from the oven waited to be transformed into soup, the instant pot had fragrant onion sauteing, a dishtowel cradled 2 piles of tomatoes, each pile carefully weighed out. Another jumble of red orbs was cut, read for the oven. Rock and roll tumbled from my little green speaker. I stood and smiled, a feeling of complete bliss washing over me. I snugged my apron around my waist and spun to the next task.

It was a long day and hardly the best day to have the oven blasting out heat, but I had a giant basket of tomatoes from Trudie that had to be attended to. When Carm came in with the basket yesterday my stomach dropped… what the hell was I going to do with close to 100 tomatoes? Well, I slept on it. When I woke up this morning, before the sleep had even left my eyes, I checked online for a recipe for tomato soup that used skin and all… I found a promising one that required the tomatoes to be roasted for 45 minutes… I got up and turned on the oven. Did I mention that it was 31C today?

While those were cooking I started washing others to freeze them whole… I didnˋt get far into my task when I decided to roast them all in batches to make up the soup (after looking for containers of course). So there went my day… chopping, roasting, chopping, roasting. I did 5 batches and have already entered soup days into the calendar for the next 6 months!

There are probably enough tomatoes left for 2 more batches but they arenˋt fully ripe… Iˋm out of containers too!

I use Google calendar to menu plan, lately when weˋve been stocking up on things I make an entry in the months ahead… the actual day might get changed around when Iˋm within final planning range… but they wonˋt get forgotten!

It was one of the most satisfying days Iˋve had in a while and the feeling of peaceful easy feeling is still in my limbs.

And the soup? Carm thought it was the best tomato soup heˋd ever had (thatˋs my honey always supportive).

Awesome!

“my kitchen”

“peaceful easy feeling lasting all day”

“creamy roasted tomato soup”

“picking fresh basil to store with the roasted tomatoes”

“a quick dunk in the pool when I took a break from the kitchen”

“the smell of flowers on the back deck”

“Spike running down the hall with the zoomies”

“the little white flowers on the spider plant”