Look Ma, I Is Domesticatedtion

This afternoon, I honed in on my homemaking skills. I took pride in being a woman. I practiced the art of familial nurture.

Then I decided I was done and yelled at my kids to go to bed so I could write this post.

I love tomatoes. Wait, I'm blogging. I should say it like this: I.love.tomatoes. or
I heart tomatoes.

I love tomato soup. I.love.tomato.soup. I've grown up eating the campbells version out of a can, (with milk, cuz water is ew) and was oblivious that homemade tomato soup was an option. A few months back, a crafty friend of mine posted a recipe for tomato soup she had made for her family. I was intrigued and decided to try it out. It did not go over well; Clint said it was a little to "healthy tasting". I suppose he was correct, since it was missing the artificial red look and tin metal taste of the canned version. The recipe didn't use milk, so it was truly a healthier tomato soup. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but agreed that since he is not a tomato lover, and egad, the soup actually tasted like tomatoes, it was not a viable dinner to add to our rotation.

But then I came across this website and found a different recipe for homemade tomato soup that looked delish, and it called for a whopping 2 cups of heavy whipping cream. I figured it would be safe to attempt again, which I did tonight. Oh, how yum it was.

Jaylee's (actually, this lady's) Yummy Tomato Soup

3 lbs of vine-ripened tomatoes
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cups tomato juice (not V8, it actually needs to say tomato juice)
1 cup cooking sherry (haven't you heard? The alcohol cooks out. I think... Crap. Don't tell my bishop)
3 T white sugar
1 bouillon cube (the website I got this from used gluten free bouillon. I'm just waiting for the day they come up with gluten free gluten (oh, by the way, I used 2 cubes because I like the extra flavor, and guess what - they weren't gluten free))
2 T chopped fresh basil
It's fun to change the colors

Use a 5-6 quart crock pot. Wash all your tomatoes and cut into quarters and place them in your crockpot.

Here is a picture of all of my tomatoes placed in my crock pot in case you had any questions as to how the tomatoes should look when they are placed in your crock pot because sometimes people want to see pictures of tomatoes in crockpots

No need to peel them. Add the onion and then cover with tomato juice, sherry, bouillon, sugar, and basil. Stir, cover, and cook on low heat for 6-8 hours.

You can leave it chunky, but my dinner table must be "chunk free", so I blended the soup in small batches and placed it into a sieve for some extra smoothness. Then I blended again what didn't make it through the sieve, and it all went back into the crockpot. Now if you're not careful, and think to yourself "but when I make my smoothies, I fill the blender up to the top and there are no problems", please take a look at my shirt and pants:

I actually had one of those moments that you see in the movies where the top of the blender shoots up and the contents are splattered across your wall. Some also landed in my toaster. How the heck am I supposed to clean that out? I think it exploded because of some heat differential being more buoyant than the air particles, and the blender atoms couldn't contain that amount of centrifugal force for the duration of the liquefy cycle, so the fluidity of the soup couldn't occupy the same space because an object in motion stays in motion and an object at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. Or, something like that. Seriously, small batches is the name of the game.

Moving on, after your soup is liquid enough, add 2 cups of heavy cream and stir. I added a bunch of shakes from my kosher salt box (maybe 10?) so you should only add 5 since you're normal.

Here are the end results

I don't have the setting on my camera that makes your food look visibly appetizing (like my crafty friend has), so just take my word for it. It.was.good. I hearted it. My family hearted it to. Also, it made a load of soup, so next time I'll freeze half of it. I can't with this batch because (and correct me if I'm wrong) previously frozen milk based soups do not make for decent meals. So, next time I'll add enough cream for our personal servings, and freeze the remainder of the un-creamed soup. I'm sure I'll be making this recipe again (you've seen the size of my farm).

But wait, there's MORE!

I made cookies! That's two somethings in one day! I can barely do 1 something. The recipe is here if you want it. They were a little too rich for my Dorito loving palate, so I probably won't be making these again. Here's a trick for these cookies. When you're creaming the peanut butter and cream cheese together, don't pull the cord far away from the outlet because you may pull the cord out while you're creaming the ingredients, and you may set the hand held mixer up right, and you may plug the cord back in, and you just may end up witnessing another splattering of your walls because you didn't turn the blender off before you plugged it back in, and you'll see the pieces fly everywhere, but not be able to find them until you arrive at your in-laws house to borrow some cinnamon, and they chuckle because you have tomato soup all over your clothes and creamed filling in your hair.

Also, make sure you use both beaters because you may spend 5 minutes wondering why the heck it's not creaming before realizing you've been one beater shy the entire time.

Viola! Jumbo Honey Roasted Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches (just typing the name added 100 calories to my hips)

From the website www.howtobealazyparentandstillenrich
yourchildslifebydoingtheabsoluteminimumin
100simpleactivites.com, number 28 - "Make sure your child licks a beater at least once in their life. The choice is yours whether to give them the second beater or not. Better get them used to disappointment now instead of later."

Nuggets of wisdom, from my home to yours.

Ack, there's also a finale! Pie! I made a pie! And if you've been wondering about my Apple Pie in a Bag recipe, I do actually use a bag.

I'm domesticated out.