Early Bird Gets the Soup!

We have a first!!!! This is the first time that we have officially run out of soup. And we didn't run out at a quarter seven. Nope! We ran out at 5:55pm. Yes, really! And considering no one came until about 4:30pm, that's pretty amazing. I didn't even get to set aside a container for my grandma (sorry, Grandma!) before it was gone!

It's true that my pot was not filled to the brim, but I had about 7 quarts, which is still quite a bit. And it was a Sundried Tomato and Lentil Soup that was much more like a hearty stew so I kind of expected it to go further, although the recipe did say "serves 10" and we had more than that.

The Librarian gave me a cookbooklet from Vancouver's Commercial Drive last week and the recipe came from that book. It's a specialty at Pane Vero Bakery and Cafe. This was an excellent recipe and I followed it almost to the letter. I used regular parsley instead of flat leaf and that's about the only change I made. It was extremely delicious!

We had a full house today too, and everyone brought hearty appetites because the weather was nice and so they'd all been working outside in their gardens all day. I think there were 11 guests plus myself and The Southerner. The bread was a nice Irish Soda Herb bread, which I've made before, but this time I left out the currants . We voted last time and thought that while it tasted fine with currants, it was an odd combination with soup.

Those who missed my homemade mozzarella cheese last week, were wowed and amazed by the butter I made this week! If you know how to make butter, shhhhh....don't tell...Everyone thinks I'm a whiz in the kitchen now. Although someone did ask, "Where do you keep the cow?" Alas, no cow, only deer, and while they like me enough to eat out of my hands, I've never heard of anyone milking a deer and I'm not going to be the first one to try that.

I guess with the nice weather we will start getting more people to Sunday Soup. Also, we know more people than we did nearly a year ago when we started it (thanks to SS!). I might have to invest in another pot for back-up soup for the summer. Luckily, The Southerner's cracked ribs are healing nicely and he's been back in the garden, so in a few months, he'll be bringing home produce for me to turn into soup.

So today's lesson is: If you are coming for "the hang" as The Southerner says, "fall by the house any Sunday between 4pm-7pm", but if you're coming for the soup, "Get here early!"

Here's the butter!