These little saucy gems make my mouth water. The only downside to my jonesing for this little round delight is that they are only worth the time, trouble and taste buds in the summer. Once August hits I am eating dozens a day. Last year I had only 4 heirloom varieties that yielded hundreds of tasty treats.
Well it is finally March and I am already dreaming of my summer digging in the dirt of my community garden plot. I spent the afternoon browsing www.seedsavers.org for lovely names like Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, and Martino's Roma! By the time I was finished I had ordered 11 varieties! I started the seeds of the tomatoes I had saved from last year and was ready to eat some tomatoes even if they were the plain winter grocery store variety.
I decided to make the Tomato Soup, Chunky Croutons, Crunch Veggies and Guacamole and Sticky Prune Sponge Desserts from page 76 of Meals in Minutes. I thought it would be a great Sunday afternoon food while it started snowing big flakes outside. Also my second secret addiction is avocados so this would be perfect! The kids were working up and appetite playing Just Dance on the Wii and the Duff family decided to escape winter by jetting off to Vegas. It was just going to be dinner for 5 so no doubling the recipe. I thought time would be my friend today. But alas I was just as rushed and everyone believes it is the curse of the carrots. Jamie Oliver must have some pretty nice carrots where he lives because he never peels or preps them in this book so far. My carrots are nasty monster winter carrots whose fur coats must be removed prior to consumption. Both my husband and brother in law feels I should peel them before I start, I am too stubborn! My time today was 34 minutes probably due to the damn carrots!
I was a little worried the family would hate this particular dinner because all four of them hate tomatoes. I smiled and said just try everything. They were very good sports and it paid off! The scruffy hubby gave the meal a 5!!! Guess he wasn't feeling so frugal in his star spending tonight! He even said "I don't even like tomato soup but I love this!" He really enjoyed the bread in the soup as well. Max loved it too and dittoed his Dad with 5 stars for the soup and the bread. Simon said "my best is the soup and the milk! You get 3 (while he held up 5 fingers)" And as you can probably guess Mary the little food critic dropped last weeks values to only 1's for both the soup and avocado.
The best part of the whole meal was the one thing I thought was going to be a waste to make...the prune dessert. This was the easiest and tastiest dessert I have EVER made. Six minutes to wonderful! Max has said we have to name it Old Man Prune dessert, Mary threw in Sexy Old Man Prune Dessert thanks to Jamie Oliver's Sexy Swedish buns we made yesterday for a snack. So while the kids sang "sexy old man dessert" Cory and I smiled and enjoyed the spicy little cakes.
It was a great meal for only $4.50 a person. I missed the rest of our happy family today! It was not the usual blog meal three ring circus, but I will forgive them if they bring me back dark chocolate M&M's from Vegas.
Now I just have to wait a week! Maybe my tomatoes will have sprouted by then!
Trish
mmmmmmmm! I love tomatoes!
Our nice little dinner! 34 minutes and $4.50 a person
Simon gave me 3! His favorite number!
My kitchen all prepared before we started.
My heritage tomatoes all planted and ready to grow!
What better meal for a snowy Sunday than soup. After two weeks of holding back that 5th star on what were two real good meals, I gave this week a top rating. You kind of have to when even the weather seems to be lending a hand in creating the perfect meal. So tonight we sat down to tomato soup, bread, veggies, guacamole and a toasty warm prune cake for desert and it was excellent. That is saying a lot, coming from a guy who does not really like tomato soup and never eats avocados, as for the prune desert, well I kind of have always liked prunes (something I never admit because prunes get a bad reputation with the whole natural laxative thing). So it was another good day of good food and a great wife loving her family with food. See you next week.
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