Saving them for later

 

It's that time of year: when tomatoes seem to multiply. Or, if you're a Garrison Keillor fan, Tomato Butt season. And while I love fresh tomatoes, I can only eat so many BLTs and caprese salads and almost always let some spoil. But this year I've developed a strategy for using excess charity tomatoes, one that I think will make us happy when winter rolls around: roasted tomato-basil soup that's going in my freezer for a cold day. Seeing whereas I have a Vitamix blender and a basil plant that's been growing on my screen porch, this was super easy to make. And I do love me an easy recipe. Here's how I made the soup:

SEPTEMBER TOMATO-BASIL SOUP

4 lbs. tomatoes, halved horizontally and seeds squeezed out

4-5 T. olive oil
Garlic powder, salt, and black pepper

4 cups water
2 T. minced fresh basil
2 T. sugar

Place tomato halves cut side down on a rimmed baking sheet and pour olive oil over. Season generously with garlic powder, salt, and pepper (or use whole garlic cloves for extra roasty flavor; I just didn't happen to have any on hand). Bake at 400 for about 30 minutes or until tomatoes are mushy and browning on the edges.

Put roasted tomatoes in a stock pot with water and basil. Season with salt and pepper and let simmer over medium heat about 20-30 minutes. Allow to cool to room temperature before pulsing in a blender with 2 T. sugar. Serve warm or transfer to plastic bags to freeze.

 

Here's to soup season being maybe, just maybe, right around the corner.

Labor of love

Our son CJ will gladly tell you how old he is: "Twooooo!" That is, when he isn't lying and saying he's "sixteen" because he wants to drive a car.

When I was a kid, I didn't even know what Labor Day was. Kids don't labor, so it is easy to miss the point. I always associated the holiday with my paternal grandfather's Sept. 2 birthday; he would have been 101 yesterday.

On Labor Day 1995, I met my husband, Ben, at a picnic in George Wyth State Park. I was invited by my friend, John, with whom I edited the public display of immaturity that was the “teen section” of our local newspaper. (I'm sure it is long defunct; what teenager reads a newspaper these days? I'm pretty sure most teenagers didn't read the newspaper in 1995, either.) Ben was wearing mesh wrestling shorts, a tank top, and was seated at a picnic table hugging a cooler of long-necked green glass Mountain Dew bottles. I never actually learned his real name as everyone was calling him “Guns” (not because he was a gun nut but because he had large arms and his last name rhymed with the word). When another mutual friend asked if he could have one of the coveted Mountain Dews, I believe Ben told him no way and called him a $&%*face. Then, he immediately turned to me and offered me a bottle, so I guess I wasn’t a $&%*face. What more evidence did you need that we were a match made in heaven? Ahhh, teenage romance.

Sixteen years later, on Labor Day 2011, I was in the hospital in Des Moines. I had spent the whole weekend knowing how I was going to spend Labor Day: in labor. The doctors had told me the previous Friday that they needed to induce my labor at 37 weeks because of elevated blood pressure, so at 6:26 p.m. that Monday evening, three weeks before his expected arrival, the love story came full circle with the birth of our wonderful son, C.J.

His birthdate is September 5, but because he was born on the holiday we will likely celebrate that day every year for the rest of our lives. So we had a 2nd birthday party yesterday. There was Twinkie cake. Yard games. Balloons that CJ desperately wanted me to remove from the chandelier for him to play with. And after we sang him two verses of "Happy Birthday to You" and he blew out his big "2" candle, he had a humble request: "Again?"

It was a great day to celebrate, and here's to many more Labor Days together with our goofball family!