Ta Dah!

Hold onto your hats and sit down if you are standing up......

Today we are making the long-talked-about, now nearly reknown Carrot and Red Pepper Soup (or is the official title Red Pepper and Carrot Soup?  Whatever....)

Oh, yes, after I tossed the first roasted red peppers, I went out and got more.  I stubbornly refuse to quit on the idea (and after all, I have all the other ingredients still...)  And what better time for soup than when it is uncharacteristically cold in FL and I have a virus?!  (It's been downgraded from a Category 2 Upper Respiratory Virus to just an Irritating Cough now...)

So here we have the ingredients waiting to be used:

(Most photos on my blog are enlarged by clicking on them)

Yes, you are seeing correctly:  prechopped onion in a package.  I don't "do" onions myself.

And here is the second batch of red peppers roasting away:

To be continued when the final product is finished....

Ta Dah!!!

I added toasted garlic rounds...

Now for the review:    

I never realized carrots were so sweet.  I expected a tangier soup what with the balsamic vinegar, red peppers, onions, and pepper added!  It's kind of sweet.  I don't think I really like that so much.  Anyone know what I should do if I ever make it again to achieve a tangier flavor?  More onion?  Different kind of onion?  (I used white.)  More balsamic?  All of you cooks out there, I'm open to suggestions!

Oh.  And as for "slipping the charred skins off of the roasted peppers"............"slipping" my eye!  What a royal pain.  Flakes off in chunks and it takes forever.  Messy and nasty chore.

Wonder if I used store-bought roasted red peppers I could squeeze the oil out of them and save myself the roasting step?

Anyway, it's damn nutritious and low in calories and fat, that's for sure.  So I'll probably eat it afterall.

(It doesn't compare to the yummy homemade chicken soup my sweet snowbird neighbor, Julie, brought me when I was at the height of my virus.....now that's a recipe I need to get!)

Eight Days a Week

Isn't that an old Beatles' song?

Yeah, well, I'm afraid eight days of hangin' out in the fridge is too long for my roasted peppers.  I hesitate to unwrap and even look at them.  Sad to say, it's into the garbage disposal with the roasted red peppers.  (Hey, at least I learned how to roast them.  It's not a total loss!)

See?  That's another thing about cooking.  You have to cook the dang food you bring home fairly quickly, whether you are in the mood for it or not (and by "it", I mean not only the cooking, but that particular food).  And whether your social plans allow for dinner at home or not.  I can't commit to that.  I'm a "P" on the Myers-Briggs, for gosh sakes.

Schedule?  Schedule?  We don't want no stinkin' schedule!

Sick in the Sun

Ever notice how a cold doesn't feel quite so bad when you can sit in the sun?  That was me today.

Have a bit of congestion, a cough, and general blahs.  Not so bad to keep me in bed;  in fact, one of my snowbird friends this morning suggested I sit in the sun a while to feel better.  Knowing how nice that sun feels on the face of a sniffles victim, I acquiesced.

So I packed my new mini-backpack (bought at the Goodwill for $3.99) with Benadryl and water, my phone and camera, Kleenex, hand wipes, and Discman and CD's (I know, I'm out of music touch....no IPod).

And here I sat for an hour and a half.

With my little one-webfooted friend:

Watching those who braved the 60F to feel some solar warmth on a few unexposed skin areas:

Although colors aren't as spectacular in the photos as they are in real life, the ocean was vivid green-blue.....

After a while, one of my new friends spotted me on the beach and came over with her granddaughter:

But in that cool, damp wind (10-13mph), even the sun couldn't lessen my cold symptoms, so I cancelled my happy hour with the snowbirds in favor of this:

It's only 4:38PM, but I can't keep my eyes open.  Thanks to the Benadryl.  So I think I need to nap.  Nighty night.

See, Here's the Thing.....

with this snowbird singles group, it's actually hard to find time to cook....so much brunching, cocktailing and dinners out.  We all went out to dinner tonight at the Ocean Club (dinner and dancing) so again, no carrot and red pepper soup.

Hang in there.

Maybe tomorrow.  Night. 

Confession......

peppers still in the fridge. 

How long will roasted peppers last? 


(Have I mentioned I'm not wild about cooking?)

And I Say to Myself....

"What a wonderful world!"

Know that song?  I share the songwriter's joy in nature almost daily, and I love the line about "friends meeting friends, saying 'How do you do'....they're really saying, 'I love you'".....but I wish I felt in general "What a wonderful world" more often, instead of lamenting all the ills of our world. 

I did feel that way on my birthday.  Fifteen of the snowbird women I've been getting to know down here came over for hors d'oeuvres and wine and birthday cake and coffee and it was an absolutely lovely evening.  Having lived as a single since age 28 (single mother, though, blessed with my son) I've come to the comforting realization that as long as there are people in the world, I am never really "alone."  So many friendly, caring people everywhere you go.

Here I've found an outstanding example of that.  The people I'm getting to know who also snowbird down here are all such fun, such varied individuals, every one of them with fascinating life stories.  (Discovered the same thing in other areas I've spent winters over the last five years, too...)

And while I hesitate to post the group photos of us all, not knowing them well enough to know whether they might have objections to their pictures appearing on a public blog like this, I can post the birthday cake....replete with sixty candles, because it's been a long time since I've had my own birthday cake and I wanted to blow them all out!  (And did so just in time to save the cake decorations from burning up!)

(Click to enlarge)

Chocolate with fudge layers and chocolate buttercream frosting...mmmmm!

So to those of you who haven't lived alone, but may find yourself so in years to come, know that there are so many caring people for you to find in the world, that you are never really alone.

SIXTY!!!

Today I am sixty!         Oh.  My.  God.

I don't feel sixty.  I don't even feel fifty.  And if you revert to my original blog post in September, you will recall that I feel some age "post-28."

I have never been bothered by age "numbers".....ever.....not even now.  (Do you believe I actually had a girlfriend who cried when she turned thirty?!  I mean, get a grip!)

But what did hit me back when I turned fifty was the realization of my mortality, no matter how young I felt.  And it's hitting me even more now.  If I am lucky, I only have 20 or so years left on this earth. (If I am not lucky, even fewer.)  Now that really is sobering and I don't like it one bit.

In many ways, I feel so blessed and content.  Blessed to have retired early.  Blessed to be healthy.  Blessed to have a healthy son and healthy grandchildren.  Blessed by friends and family.  Blessed to have been born in America.  Blessed to have lived through great strides being taken by women, which afforded me a career of my own and independence.

But I'm always looking for something to pour myself into.  Something that will "help the world."  So far, in my retirement, I haven't found it. And I start feeling a little panicky, like time is running out.  But then I get to thinking of my life and all of the students I taught and the ones who came back to visit or write and thank me for being their teacher (believe me, there are plenty who don't have one good thing to say about me, too....) and I realize in some small ways, maybe I did that already. 

On the heels of that thought, I muse that most of us aren't meant to help the world in big, earth-shattering ways anyway.  That most of us, by loving and guiding and setting as good as an example as we can for our own children and grandchildren, are doing something "for the world."  We are building a stable, ethical societal foundation.

And we can augment that by being active volunteering in our communities, donating goods and money to charitable organizations, lending our skills wherever they are needed.

So while I'm dabbling with volunteerism, but haven't found a "passion" for which to pour myself into yet, I will "keep on keeping on" (for you young-ins, that's a Sixties phrase) and be thankful for the sixty years I've lived and all that I am fortunate to have experienced.

Happy Birthday to Me