Tomato Basil soup

Today was BEE YOU TEE FULL!  I'm sure God had a plan when He plunked me down in a climate with winters, but I haven't figured it out, yet.  When I see Him in heaven I'll be sure to ask him about it, because this girl thrives in warm weather and withers in cold weather.

This morning I was completely zonked, and the only reason I can come up with is being tuckered out from Zumba last night.  It was so difficult to get out of bed today and my brain was foggy.  I had an appointment for a routine cleaning at the dentist's this morning, so didn't eat or drink coffee.

I was sitting in the waiting room for awhile, wondering why the hygienist was taking so long to come get me.  Of course I was so tired I was curled up in the chair with my eyes closed.  She called my name and I followed her to the back.  She said, "Oh my gosh, Amber!  You've lost weight!  And your hair...!  I kept coming to look for you in the waiting room and wondered why you weren't here, yet.  I finally realized you were you!"  So sweet!  Even if I didn't have to open my mouth wide to get my teeth cleaned, I would have still been beaming from the compliment.

After that I was starving!  I suckered a friend into meeting me for lunch, and she let me choose the place.  Thai sounded good, but I've never had Thai food in this city, so I did some quick searching on my phone and found Simply Thai.  I was a little nervous, because not all Thai restaurants are created equally, and this was my friend's first experience with Thai food.  I wanted her to be left with a 'good taste in her mouth'. *bud dum ching*

I started with Tom Yum Goong (Hot & Sour), and mostly disliked it.  I bit into a big chunk of ginger and that ruined it for me.



Next I had Pad Thai without the egg, and with shrimp and extra peanuts.  It was so good.

This morning I put a roast in the crockpot for the rest of the family.  About an hour before I wanted it to be ready I added several new potatoes.  As I was cutting up the roast and putting everything in a serving dish, I put a loaf of garlic bread under the broiler.  The husband and kids were very pleased with their dinner, and it did smell really good.  Here is a picture after they already ate about half of it.

For dinner I wanted to make myself something a little light because I had eaten such a big lunch.  I only have one tomato left, but had a big can of tomatoes.

I decided to make some tomato soup.

First I put a fair bit of olive oil in the pan, then added a large yellow onion.

Next I added a leek.

Next I added about 4-5 Tbsp chopped garlic, and more leaves from my basil plants.

Here we have some crushed red pepper, dried Greek oregano, and fresh rosemary leaves.

After a few stirs around the pan, I added the full can of tomatoes.  There wasn't much room in the pot, so I stirred very carefully.  I always try to split each tomato open by crushing it or slicing through it with my cooking utensil.

The quality of this picture isn't great, but this is after everything simmered for awhile and the tomatoes were breaking down.

This immersion blender is one of my most favourite kitchen tools.  I never used one before this year and can't believe all I missed out on.  Also, it's purple.

Everything started getting very messy after this, because the pan was so full.

This soup is very tangy and tomato-y.  It would probably make a better pasta sauce than a soup, and I may make some rice pasta tomorrow and use this as a sauce.