Delicious

This week I made a homemade roasted tomato cream soup and it was out of this world! Three mouths to feed and we all three gave it a thumbs up. With it I served hot turkey and cheese sandwiches on homemade bread. YUM!

I followed Tyler Florence’s recipe in the beginning but then added a little bit of that and a little bit of this (I bought three different kinds of tomatoes – Ugly Ripe, Roma, and Campari). I omitted the butter and used half&half instead of heavy cream, and used shallots instead of onions.

If you like cream of tomato soup but hate the ENTIRE ingredients list and the sodium that comes from the ready made ones, you have to try this. Here it is from his official website: www.tylerflorence.com :

(and if you did not know this already, yes, he is from Columbia SC).

ROASTED TOMATO SOUP WITH FRESH BASIL

Recipe courtesy Tyler Florence

Preheat oven to 450˚F.

Wash, core and cut the tomatoes into halves.  Spread the tomatoes, garlic cloves and onions onto a baking tray.  Also add the vine cherry tomatoes if using for garnish, leave them whole and on the vine. Drizzle with ½ cup of olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Roast for 20-30 minutes or until caramelized.

Remove roasted tomatoes, garlic and onion from the oven and transfer to a large stock pot (set aside the roasted vine tomatoes for later use).  Pour in any liquid, ¾ of the chicken stock, bay leaves and butter.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until liquid has reduced by1/3.

Wash and dry basil leaves and add to the pot.  Puree the soup using an immersion stick blender until smooth. Return soup to low heat, add cream and adjust consistency with remaining chicken stock if necessary.  Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Garnish in bowl with three or four roasted vine cherry tomatoes and a splash of heavy cream.

Edited: August 4th, 2009

Importance of reading

From DownDaddy @ http://downdaddy.wordpress.com/

“November 13, 2009. This is a link to a interesting article on development of reading and communication skills in children with Down Syndrome.  The research being performed is related to a controlled study of 40 children who are participating in this program to develop reading and other skills.   The study is quite interesting in that it follows the results I have experienced with my own daughter and the results other families I talk with are experiencing as well.

The research team is beginning working with the children at 2 years of age which is good, but we started working with our daughter from the day she was born by reading to her.  In fact, I remember quite well how I was catching up some casual reading and spent an afternoon reading a Stephen King book to her when she was less than a year old.”

..more…

A Request from Afghanistan

For those of you who do not know Michelle, she is wife to Joe who is in Afghanistan and mother to Kayla and Lucas.

Her blog Big Blueberry Eyes is named after her beautiful daughter Kayla who has gone from toddler to young lady in what seems like moments.

Please pass this on and lets help make this an incredible Thanksgiving for our soldiers.

From Michelle at Big Blueberry Eyes

A Request From Afghanistan

This is a follow up from my post Thanksgiving in Afghanistan. Thanks for the suggestions on the turkeys – a contractor over there has committed to getting them some turkeys so they are good to go with that. Yay!Now they need the typical side items to go along with the turkey.

That’s where the request comes in.

Joe, and the group of guys that are working together to try and make this Thanksgiving meal happen, are asking friends and family to donate/send canned goods.

So I’m putting the word out there to see if anyone would like to help out.

I’m not organizing this canned food drive; I’m not the POC for making sure they get enough of each item…I’m just spreading the request. With the ‘committee’ all asking their family and friends for donations the hope is that they will get enough of what they need. And if they have enough leftover they will use it towards a Christmas meal. I know they’re hoping to get enough of each canned item, but they’re also grateful for whatever they do receive and will make do with what they get.

I do know there are about 200 US troops where Joe is deployed.

The items they are looking for are: sweet corn, green beans, peas, cranberry sauce, and stuffing mix.

If people want to send 1 can, 4 cans, 10 cans or however many, it will all add up and every little bit will help.

If you’re interested in sending something, please email me so I can send you Joe’s address.

FYI: The postage cost to send something over there is the same as if you were sending to someone in the states; because in fact it does get sent to NY, and then from there goes on a military cargo plane out, so there isn’t any extra postage incurred.

Also there are Priority Mail APO large flat rate boxes that are used for military APO addresses only; and these might be a little cheaper depending how heavy the items are that you send. (Using these boxes the postage is $11.95 as opposed to a regular large flat rate box at $13.95.)

When I send Joe boxes they have been getting to him in a week, so there is time for the canned items to get there.

Thank you!