Missing: One Southern Gentleman

Today's Sunday Soup was super crowded, but everyone noticed right away that The Southerner was missing. They're a sharp crowd, our friends. He was feeling a bit under the weather, so at 4pm, we did a house swap and The Neighbour came over here and he went to her house and slept on her couch with her kitty (don't tell our cats). He was missed, but is feeling a bit better now, although I expect he'll be taking it easy for at least a few days.

The soup was a pinto bean Mexican type thing that I totally made up on Friday night. There were two main factors involved in choosing this week's soup. One: I could make it without having to go to the store. Two: All I had to do was open my cupboard. Okay, I know those are the same things, but two reasons sounds better than one. This is a very simple soup. I don't have any measurements, but if you want to make it, I'm sure you can figure it out.

Cooked pinto beans (don't use canned, you'll need too many cans and they taste gross) and their liquid.
Water
Canned tomatoes
Corn
Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (actually, I just used the sauce)
Taco seasoning
Salt & Pepper

Cook the beans. Take 2/3 of them and put them in a big pot with some water and blend with an immersion blender. Add the canned tomatoes, some frozen corn, and the rest of the cooked beans and the cooking liquid and as much water as you want to make your soup the consistency you're hoping for. Add the seasonings and adobo sauce. Simmer. Best let it sit overnight for the flavours to meld.

The bread was even easier than the soup because we didn't have any! I just opened some corn tortilla chips. Oh, and I served cheese and chives with the soup.

If you're wondering why I took such an easy route this week, it's because I am on a very tight deadline for my book, I am running out of ideas for soup (thank goodness next week makes 52 and then I am free to make repeats since one year of new soups was my goal), and yesterday was my birthday and I didn't feel like spending it in the kitchen.

I did spend today in the kitchen though and made a lovely chocolate-rhubarb-raspberry cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting and then offered it up as "leftover birthday cake". The Realtor brought two new-to-the-island people and a strawberry rhubarb pie (he knows what I like!) too, so there was a lot of dessert.

We had some guests we hadn't seen in a while, as well as a lot of the regular crowd. All in all, even without The Southerner, we had twelve people, plus me, and the cats so it was practically a party!

AND NOW FOR THIS VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!!!
Next week is the 52 week of Sunday Soup. At one time, before I knew I'd be on a deadline, I had intended to do all kinds of cool things to celebrate, like have door prizes, and make three or four soups, and ask everyone to bring their own soups to swap with each other, and, and...

Well, anyway, that is not going to happen because I don't have time to organize anything except my book this week. However, you still want to come next week if you can. And I'll give you a hint why. Okay, ready? Here's your hint:

Sundae Soup

Yep, that's your hint. Now aren't you curious? I thought so. While the whole point of SS is for y'all to be able to drop in without saying whether you're coming or not, if you know you're coming, and you want to let us know this week, it would be appreciated. I want to make sure that I have enough soup for the masses! If you're not sure, no biggie. Feel free to drop in. I will make sure I have lots.

Also, to celebrate one year of SS, we will be collecting canned soup for the food bank, so here's your chance to "bring something" if you want. Totally optional.