Garden Tomato Soup

I'm pretty disappointed in our tomato crop this year.
We planted cherry tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes, Roma tomatoes and then plain old beefsteak tomatoes.
Someone in our house LOVES tomatoes after all!
But the only plant that really did well was the yellow pear tomato.  In fact the other two plants (in the same bed) got blossom end rot!  Really sad, and I guess next year we need to feed them some calcium early!

When we planted 4 tomato plants in May, we were hopping for a huge haul and some serious canning.
After the nice hot weather we've had the last few weeks we had about 3 lbs of ripe tomatoes. Not nearly enough to can with!
So, I made tomato soup tonight instead!

In know we've been really slacking on the whole Sunday Supper thing.  (But Gabe was in NC all week and it was tough being a single working mom all week!)  I do promise we'll be back to hosting Sunday Suppers again before the year is over.  Things will settle down a bit here after Gabe gets back from hunting with his dad next week!

Anyway...the soup was really easy!
Saute up some red onion and carrots.

Then add garlic, fresh tomatoes, some sugar, a little bit of tomato paste, chicken stock, fresh basil and it looks like this:

After some simmering...
Put it through a food mill, add some cream and enjoy!

We had to top ours with a little more basil and chives.  Levi said he didn't want any "green stuff" on his.

Since fall is officially here we also made pumpkin pancakes and pumpkin bread today.  Autumn is the yummiest season of all!

First Day of School!

This big kid started preschool today!

He was so excited!
I'm going to be honest, Mom and Dad were a little nervous.  Levi's never been left with new people so we weren't sure how he'd handle being left at school.  We've visited his classroom twice and talked a lot about school.  He must have been ready because he walked right in.  Found his cubby.  And went right to the table to play with the RED play doh.  Gave us kisses and then didn't even care when we waved good-bye.

First Day of Preschool Interview:
Levi (age 3)

What's your favorite color?
RED

What do you want to do when you're a grown up? (like Mommy and Daddy)
I think...I will maybe...um...I might like to do something...like do a project.

What's your favorite song?
The wheels...you know that song.

What's your favorite book?
SkippyJohn Jones

What was your favorite part of school today?
Playing with kids

Good-Bye Summer

I'd say we spent our unofficial last weekend of summer finishing things off right!

Friday, we got out of town early to get to Eugene and listen to Gabe's dad play music here.  Good beer, great music and time with grandparents.  Perfect!  Then Saturday afternoon, Tom had another gig up in Oakridge, so we went up to hear some more music at the park.

Levi got to ride around the bike path, throw rocks in the river, see Grandma Winnie and enjoy Grandpa Tom's harmonics.  Good times!

Yesterday we went down to the Oregon State Fair.
Levi's first trip to the fair was full of fun.
He loved looking at the animals (but not the petting zoo so much).

He loved the rides!

This roller coaster he did with Daddy was his favorite.

And he loved the food!  It wouldn't be the fair without food.  A lunch of hand dipped corn dogs, curly fries and strawberry lemonade was topped off with Levi's first taste of cotton candy.  (Mommy and Daddy didn't share their deep fried Snicker's bar with him.)

Today we've been hanging out at home, getting some much needed yard work done.  And I'm slowly trying to wrap my brain around the fact that another school year starts tomorrow.  I'm not ready to say good-bye to summer.  It was such a great one!