Soup in the Summer?

Why not?

I don't know if it is just allergies gone wild, or if we are all nursing mild Summer colds (no fevers, so I lean toward the allergy theory) but some of us are sneezy and some have headaches, sore throats, etc. Soup seemed like the natural choice. Luckily, it is a pleasant 82 degrees (where is the "degrees" symbol on the keyboard? There must be a "degrees" symbol somewhere!!) here in So-Cal (as opposed to 102),so it's not too unreasonable a choice, I suppose.

I just started, but here's how it is going so far:

2TBS olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 can organic diced tomatoes
about 1 1/2 cups leftover tomato sauce from last night's dinner
4-5 cups water
a pinch of salt

Now, if I hadn't had leftover tomato sauce, I would have added fresh herbs, garlic and maybe some more diced tomatoes, but I did. So, there.

Heat the oil in a soup pot. Add onion and salt (herbs and garlic would normally have gone in at this point) and cook over low-med heat until the onion is translucent. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce and water. Now, I am going to cook that for an hour or so, and then I will add veggies. I have some frozen organic mixed vegetables (corn, carrots, green beans and peas), so I will add a few handfuls of those, along with a small diced zucchini from the garden, about 1/2 of each a red bell pepper and a green bell pepper that is leftover from a recent macaroni salad and some frozen chopped spinach if I still have it. When Shane gets home (early ~ hooray!!), I will add a lot of fresh minced garlic, because I am pretty sure that will cure whatever ails us, and because he is stopping at the store to get me some ~ thank you, honey :) I'll cook that until the veggies are tender (or maybe longer, because I like to cook my soups for a long time), and then I will add a can of chick peas, drained and rinsed (and drained again, of course) and cook until everything is hot through.

Justice asked if we could put noodles in the soup. Yes, and no. I will serve the soup with noodles, but I won't cook the noodles in the soup. I will cook the noodles separately, drain them, toss in a little olive oil so they won't stick together, put them into bowls and spoon soup over them for those who so desire*. I purposely made enough that we will have leftovers, and I have found that, as the noodles sit in the broth, they tend to sop it up. The soup thickens too much, and the noodles get mushy, so, I prefer to store them separately.

I think we have some Romano in the fridge, so the cheese-eaters can grate that over the top of their soup, if they like. Then, they can grin ~ a great big cheese-eating grin. Cheese-eaters are like that, you know, always grinning in their cheese-eating way (or so I hear). I'll be sprinkling nutritional yeast on mine. It's not quite the same, but I have grown accustomed to it.

If I get a wild hair, I may get up and make biscuits, but I don't really want to heat the oven...or get up, come to think of it. Besides, I have a whole loaf of French bread that needs to be eaten, anyway.

* FYI ~ Kaia will be eating noodles, sans soup. She will probably drink green juice, and we will all pretend to think this is a perfectly reasonable choice. *sigh*