What a Month!

I really don’t know where the time has gotten to. It seemed like we were still in August just yesterday, and now here we are on the last day of September. What happened?

I shall tell you.

First, it has been harvest season, and the abundance has kept me busy. I’ve told you already about the pears our gracious neighbor down the street gave us. Well, we have also received tomatoes, onions, and beets from friends and neighbors.

The blessings continue, and I am so humbled and overwhelmed by the love, Jesus’s love, I feel coming through all these people in my life.

Friday was a very good day for me, emotionally and pain-wise. So I decided that my guys deserved an awesome supper. I made cioppino, which was amazing, as usual. I also canned salsa Friday.

Saturday, I still had too many tomatoes lying around, and so they went into the oven to be roasted for tomato soup. You can find the recipe in one of my other blog posts, here. There were so many tomatoes that once roasted and pureed, they had to go into the freezer for those cold winter nights we know are on their way. It will be wonderful, come November or December, to pull out a container of roasted tomato puree, add the chicken broth and evaporated milk, and viola! Dinner is served!

But that’s not all. No, that’s not all.

Our good friends and neighbors got married a week ago. –And it has taken me this long to recuperate. Ken and I prepared most of the wedding banquet—an amazing Mexican feast including the best Spanish rice Ken has ever made (about 6 gallons of it in total), carnitas (50 pounds before cooking), pork and nopales in red sauce (3 gallons worth), potato salad (3 gallons), salsa (3 gallons), refried beans (4 gallons), and enough fruit to fill our second refrigerator. No, we never did get rid of it, but in all honesty, it sat, unplugged, until just before the wedding. I am glad we still had it available. Frankly, I cannot remember what else was on the menu, except homemade tortilla chips. It took me two days to make those silly things, there were so many, and yet people gobbled them up like there was no tomorrow. That’s the only thing I would have been concerned about running out of, had more people shown up. As it was, there was a great crowd.

Thank you for allowing me a little break from writing. Thank you for blessing me with your readership. I am grateful for all.

And now, some pictures. Oh, I forgot to say that while I wasn’t refilling the buffet (since my teenaged helpers disappeared), I was also the wedding photographer. The ceremony took place in their back yard. Enjoy a little taste of Oregon, Mexico style!

This was after the melons were peeled and sliced and put in the restaurant tubs in the bottom. The pitchers on the top to the right are agua de fresca, another menu item I forgot to mention, 3 gallons, saved mostly for immediate family.

The pork and nopales (cactus).

There was a live band and dancing half the night.

Since the entire family was there, which as you know can be difficult to achieve with today’s busy lives, I took family portraits during the wedding as well. Not just the newlyweds and her  kids, but all the brothers and their families too, and then the next generation too, since my friend has grand-babies. I must admit, however, that by the end of the evening, as the band was getting packed up, I had to grab someone to get a pic of me and my guys, since we were all dressed up. Considering this picture was taken around ten at night, I think I look pretty darn good still.

Of all the pictures, this one has to win the award for the most touching moment, between uncle and niece, as he fixed her ribbons before the portraits were taken.

RV COOKING 101: Roasted Tomato Soup

Preparing healthy, homemade meals in an RV or while camping really isn’t that difficult. You should be able to prepare the same kinds of meals you are used to at home, but you might have to use a little more imagination or ingenuity to get the job done, being short on space and all. Menu planning is highly important, in order to take advantage of what little refrigerator and storage space there is available in an RV. What I mean is, make ingredients overlap. If there are leftovers, make sure you can use them at another meal or in another dish. My great aunt used to make her end-of-the week pot of minestrone, which was basically all the leftovers from the week thrown into a soup pot. I tried my best to not go over to her house on minestrone day. Today’s cooks can be more creative. Leftover meat from tacos can be used in an omelet, on a salad, or in quesadillas. Roasted chicken can be made into a chicken salad or put into a casserole. You get the idea.

And now, on to our first recipe.

ROASTED TOMATO SOUP

What do you do when you discover your tomato plants are loaded right before you leave? Bring that luscious fruit along, of course.

Cut the tomatoes in halves or quarters and place cut side down in a roasting pan. Cut up some carrots and celery and add to the pan. Drizzle generously with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Add chopped basil and oregano leaves (I used dried but you can use fresh if you have it). Add salt and pepper to taste. Roast at 300 degrees for about one and one-half hours, stirring every half hour.

Once the carrots are soft and the tomatoes have turned to mush (a rather technical term, I know), take them out of the oven to cool slightly. If you are brave, you can puree them in the blender immediately, but I have fears of forgetting the lid and being scalded as hot tomatoes fly everywhere (not to mention the mess I would have to clean up after such a fiasco).

Pour the pureed tomatoes into a soup pot and thin with either chicken stock or vegetable stock. Add some evaporated milk if you prefer creamy tomato soup (I know I do). Adjust the flavor to your taste, reheat, and dinner is served.

We added some Tillamook Pepper Jack cheese to ours. Delish!