SS Brought to you by fresh produce

It was brought to my attention today (by Carol), that I am a total slacker and forgot to update SS yesterday. I believe I have now forgotten two Mondays in a row! Bad hostess!!!

Last week I had an excuse (my deadline), this week...not so much. But anyway, here's the scoop.

The font is red in honour of tomatoes! While there weren't any tomatoes in my Red Beans & Rice, I did cut up several tomatoes that The Southerner grew and put them on a plate with salt and pepper. Also, all our windowsills are lined with tomatoes he grew. And there's more coming! Also, nearly every dish, except the desserts, included fresh, homegrown tomatoes. It's that time of year. Some of the fabulous salads were packed with island grown produce and everything looked as good as it tasted! We had about twenty-five or so people, which breaks our record for SS (Carol's birthday held the previous record) and we also broke the "I brought pie" record, but believe me...no one here, least of all The Southerner, is complaining about an abundance of pie. Yummmy!

The Red Beans & Rice was a hit, although there were a few funny looks as people bit into the sausage, but that was because they thought it was real sausage and didn't realize it was fake (or faux if you want to get fancy). I pretty much made RB&R the way our friend Ross had taught me, except I used Frank's Red Hot Sauce instead of tobasco because I like it better. It still forces you to open all the windows and doors once you add it to the sausage pan though...the vapours are pretty toxic and we were both coughing for a while (not on the food though). I'm sure some chemist or chef could explain it, but all I know is that if everyone around starts choking while you're making it, you're doing it right.

Only one person said they were disappointed that I didn't make an actual "soup", but the beans were somewhat soupy, so I think it counts. For the first time since I started SS, I actually made soup just for us on Monday night. Guess what kind? Yep...Creamy Roasted Tomato.

Until next week...or whenever I manage to remember to update... Everybody eat some soup!

P.S. The Southerner did not make cornbread because our kitchen was too packed with people. We now have a quart of buttermilk that needs to be used up, so I am just guessing that next week might be a cornbread weekend.