The Dinner that Wasn't Meant to Be

I started making dinner with a napping baby and two boys watching a video.

I finished dinner with a screaming baby and two boys running around in circles.

In the middle of making tomato basil soup as I pureed the tomatoes with the basil and tomato juice. I covered the top of the blender with some paper towels so the hot soup wouldn't jump out to burn my hand and splash all over my cupboards and counter. I must have pushed too hard because I heard a bad noise. The kind of noise that makes you turn off the garbage disposal really quickly. Except I wasn't running the garbage disposal. It was the blender. I took my hand away and saw that the middle plastic part had fallen into the blender and gotten itself blended. The chunks of plastic that were missing were impressive. It also rendered my blender useless. And since there were plastic chunks in half the soup. I decided not to continue.

I had pureed about half the soup so I decided to forge ahead. I can improvise, I thought to myself. I'll just add half of the whipping creme and half the butter.

It worked.

I moved on to butter 10 slices of bread for grilled cheese sandwiches.

I realized I didn't have quite as much cheese as I originally thought. I prayed for the cheese to be enough. (No, I'm not kiddding. I really did pray that. What?)

It was.

As I started putting the bread and cheese on the griddle, bread started sticking together causing me to add butter on top of butter.

I burned the first side of the grilled cheese. I forged ahead flipping the black sides of the grilled cheese.

I stopped reading my book so I could really concentrate on not burning this side of the grilled cheese. After all, it was the side that I was planning on serving to my family.

I didn't burn it.

Bellies were filled.

Tomato Basil Soup

4 cups tomatoes (8-10) peeled, cored and chopped OR
4 cups canned whole, tomatoes, crushed

4 cups unsalted tomato juice

12-14 fresh basil leaves, chopped

1 cup whipping creme

1/2 cup butter

1/4 t black pepper

salt to taste

Combine tomatoes and juice in saucepan. Simmer 30 minutes over medium to low heat. Cool slightly then place in blender. Add basil and process to puree; this will need to be done in batches. Return mixture to saucepan. Add cream and butter. Stir over low heat until cream and butter are incorporated. Stir in salt and pepper. Garnish with fresh basil.