It's a Chuck Taylors and Soup Kind of Day

Another Saturday upon us and we had a LOT planned: Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, farmer's market, downtown Art Fest, naps for the children, grocery shopping for me, soup making later, laundry and cleaning the house and fixing our screen door for Laura. Yep, she got the raw end of the deal.

We decided to all wear our respective Chuck Taylors. For just a few minutes, before Fiona had to change to her princess shoes because she can't be seen in such boying shoes, even though they're PINK. She has standards.

We found a new farmer's market today.  It was indoors, a plus since it was raining this morning. This place was huge. When we first walked in I spotted these luscious yellow peppers, of which I needed six for my soup. That booth only had four and I felt guilty buying all of them. Perhaps this guilt was misplaced. Right next to the peppers were some lovely tomatoes. I needed those too. Laura was getting concerned that we were stocking up at the very first booth when it was obvious that this was a 5,000 acre market. She let me buy the yellow peppers. She must have known how important (and obviously scarce) these were. So we all agreed to scope out the place before randomly buying produce like crazy people. Fine.

We scoped. They had everything there. Except for the additional two yellow peppers I needed. Sometimes, scoping is a waste of time. Just sayin'.

We got our vegetables for the week. Laura sneaked in an acorn squash. I have no idea how to cook this freakish vegetable. "I'll cook it," she said, when I complained. I'm such a pain in the a** sometimes.  I just hope this squash will not end up rotting in our potato bin  like it usually does. I can't handle any more fruit flies.

I don't understand squash, or zucchini, or pumpkin. Don't even get me started on desserts using these veggies. Desserts, by their very nature, should not be made out of vegetables. Even pumpkin pie is wrong. Call me un-American. If anyone (the two of you who actually read this blog) has a trusted recipe for acorn squash, please let me know. I'll cook the damn thing and I'll throw in a little love (for Laura-Jo). Maybe that'll make it taste better than chalk, with cinamon sprinkled on top.

Speaking of food, I made a Roasted Yellow Pepper and Tomato soup tonight that was, quite frankly, exhausing. It turned out beautiful and delicious. Look at it:

Pretty, right? But it took so long to make. I was almost too tired to eat it. Everyone loved it, partly because it was almost seven by the time it was finished and the troops were starving.  Fiona loved it so much she gave it two thumbs, plus 10 toes up. She's my favorite daughter.

It was quite an endeavor. Between the roasting and the chopping and the pureeing and the straining and trying to keep one soup hot as I made a whole different soup. Well, I was so worn out from the ordeal I had to retire to a bubble bath. My back hurt! That's how hard this soup was to make. I had to detox from soup making.

Then, we went outside to walk barefoot in the freshly wet grass and dance to Prairie Home Companion music and finally, crashed to PBS Kids cartoons. I'm tired, people (the two of you).