Taking Stock. Making Soup.

Creamy soup made with last summer's canned  tomatoes,  a pesto "cube" etc.
Simple and delicious recipe below.

I had a reality check recently as my dwindling list of rainy-day activities led me to take stock of what remains from the 2011 harvest. In a word: plenty. We have a small chest freezer, and its bottom quarter has not seen daylight for months. Ditto the pantry, where home-canned and dried goods are stashed, along with a box of still-perfect onions (!) a few heads of deteriorating garlic, and bags and boxes of fragrant richly colored dried peppers. More than enough. Ridiculous excess!

In a world with so much hunger and need, this is embarrassing. Two people—it seems we could feed the world, or at least the neighborhood. We need to share more and also get a grip on garden quantity, unless we decide to supply our larger community. In the meantime, we are loaded with everything tomato and enough beets to supply an army of borscht-starved Ukrainians. Thus I developed a menu plan to plumb the depths of our stores during the coming weeks (days?) when the Adventuring Son will be home for a visit. I shall strive to replenish any caloric deficit that he may have developed during his four months in Africa and a couple weeks in Brazil.

I think he goes to sleep hungry sometimes, not that that would be unusual for the native people in the far-away and exotic and sometimes dangerous places he finds himself. (Do you know anybody who has illegally camped, unprotected, on a river beach in a tiger reserve in India alongside huge paw prints? I do.)
Chris and his exploring/adventuring/risk-taking pals sometimes go for days with only what they can carry in their kayaks, and villages along the waterways don't always have food to share or sell. I know he's gotten by on candy bars and skinny dried fish, full of bones. So big mama here enjoys cooking up a storm when he occasionally alights on home turf.

Coming soon, all including remains of the 2011 harvest:

• Jambalaya
• Chili
• Lasagne
• Eggplant Parmesan
• Rama Shower - Thai curry dish, which uses a huge amount of spinach plus the peanut sauce in the freezer
• Borscht (beets, beets, beets!)

Then: young beets happy in the sun and soil.
Now: frozen beets wondering what the hell?
And there I go again, anthropomorphizing food!

I'm sure I'll revisit the simple tomato soup I made in a big hurry after I discovered how many canned tomatoes we have! I'd call it tomato bisque, but I've learned that "bisque" applies primarily to fish-based creamy soups. (Dang it, Wikipedia!) So instead, let's call this—ta da!


Creamy Tomato Delight Soup
1 quart canned whole tomatoes, preferably home-grown
1 medium onion, cut into quarters
1 large celery stalk, cut into 2-inch lengths
4 ounces cream cheese or sour cream (or more)
1 heaping Tbsp pesto (one pesto cube)*
salt and pepper to taste
ground pepper flakes to taste
Top with grated Parmesan cheese or dollop of sour cream, if desired.

Liquify the canned tomatoes in food processor and dump into a sauce pan. Add cut-up onion and celery. Cover, bring to a boil, then simmer for 30-45 minutes til onion and celery are soft. With a slotted spoon, remove onion and celery. Reduce the soup if it seems too watery. Add the basil cube, or pesto. Add the cream cheese. (May substitute sour cream). Mix with an immersion blender til smooth. Do not boil after cream cheese or pesto is added, if the pesto includes cheese.
Season. Serve with grated cheese and pepper flakes.

*About pesto cubes below.